Sunlight for Leaves
by Arcane Aegis
Summary: Perhaps he should have listened to Kakashi when he told him what to do, but no way could the closet pervert prepare him for Gaara. Instead, Naruto decides to hire an older ninja to help him train for the chuunin exams. Mitarashi Anko, with flair to match Jiraiya and a nose to rival the Inuzuka, can't resist the scent of easy money. [Anko/Naruto].
1. The Senbon Test

**Sunlight For Leaves**

by _Aegis_

Chapter I: The Senbon Test

* * *

Kakashi was cold and distant, more uncommunicative than his genin had ever seen him before. They crowded around him, words pouring from Naruto's mouth as Sakura gazed at Sasuke and Sasuke gazed at him.

"Enough," he said quietly.

"But Kakashi-sensei, we—"

"If there is something pressing that must be brought to my attention immediately, such as the release of the upcoming _Icha Icha Triage_, I plan to spend the next month in training ground thirty-seven. Inform me there," he said dispassionately. "Sasuke will be there as well, but the postal service in Fire Country doesn't reach that high in the mountains. Sending love letters will be ineffectual."

"How are you going to eat? Where will you sleep?" Sakura blustered, genuinely worried for Sasuke's health and safety. Sasuke made a growling noise in the back of his throat.

"I'm sure we'll get along fine," Kakashi said easily. It's astonishing that they could read their sensei so well, because Naruto and Sakura instantly translated that into _'We're ninja, we can take care of ourselves.'_ Sasuke didn't add to the conversation, but his agreement was clear.

"Both of you are to report to Ebisu-san for training every weekday for the next three weeks. He's made time in his schedule to bring your taijutsu up to par," Kakashi ordered.

He dismissed the two of them, and they trudged out into the streets of Konoha. Sakura pulled out a few ryo and bought a newspaper for later, which she stuffed into a pocket of her jacket, while Naruto stopped across the road and got a box of pastries.

"What plans do you have, Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked, stuffing the first of the generic deep-fried things into his mouth.

"I want to go see Ino-chan in the hospital and make sure she's okay," Sakura replied. "I wonder if she'll forgive me."

"You're both kunoichi, this kind of stuff happens," Naruto argued. "It's a shame she still made you forfeit, 'cause that last thing you did with the shuriken was pretty cool."

Sakura shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. Not that Sasuke-kun cared, but at least I would have won if it were a real fight. Anyways, she'll never get past the first round."

"How do you figure?" asked Naruto.

"Well, she only barely beat me, and that was because she got me to forfeit," said Sakura matter-of-factly. "Neji-san will kick her ass easily, then Sasuke-kun will kick his ass, and then, well..."

Her sentence trailed off, but obviously she didn't consider Naruto a possible contender for the final round. He didn't hold it against her, because he didn't either. Considering who his opponent was, it would be a miracle if he didn't lose in the first five minutes.

"Okay, but are you gonna train?" he asked. Training was the essence of a ninja, the line that separated the likes of Kakashi and Gai from the so-called _elite_ chuunin, like the ones who monitored the first exam with Ibiki.

"Maybe," Sakura said noncommittally. "I used to train with Tenten, which is why Ino didn't see that last attack, but she's still in the hospital after that fight with Temari-san."

Naruto's first reaction was to offer to train with her. Already he could envision the gaps in her technique, and the way to correct them. Her elbows were too low on the blocks, her hand seals were too sloppy.

_"Here; this is how you do it," says Naruto, the robes of the Yondaime Hokage flowing around his body. Sakura listens and corrects her posture, transforming from adequate and slightly awkward to a creature of feline grace and lethal power._

_"Oh Naruto-kun," she sighs, reaching out and tracing his jawline with a finger, running it over the beard that he now has._

_"Sakura-chan," he says, staring deep into her jade eyes framed by hair an ironic shade of pink. The sun is setting over the waters of the Naka River, and she has never looked more beautiful than in this moment, as she leans in and—_

-SLAP-

Naruto rubbed his cheek, reddening under Sakura's furious expression even as her small handprint appeared on his face.

"What was that for?" he asked reproachfully.

"You were giggling like Kakashi-sensei," she explained. Naruto remembered all too well the sparring sessions with their perverted sensei, bobbing and weaving around all three of them with contemptuous ease, chuckling luridly at Jiraiya's graphic descriptions of tits. Naruto shivered.

"Thanks."

"I think I might buy a tutor," Sakura mused, her anger draining away. "I have the money for it, and Kakashi-sensei's always saying I could have the talent for genjutsu. Kurenai-sensei might be available, or I could look into the Kurama family."

"Wait, you can hire someone to teach you?"

Sakura looked sheepish. "The practice is sort of frowned on for genin. The village assigns a jonin-sensei to genin cells, and jonin are supposed to have skill with taijutsu, genjutsu and ninjutsu. Of course, Gai-sensei can't really teach ninjutsu, and genjutsu isn't in Asuma-sensei's repertoire, so nobody follows or enforces that rule. Tenten learned fuuinjutsu from a tutor."

"I– Maybe I should get a private teacher?" Naruto said, almost asked. Sakura nodded absently.

"I need to get going," she said. "Visiting hours are over in a few minutes. Still gotta get victory rubbed in my face by Ino-pig."

They both laughed good-naturedly, and then Sakura walked off, whipping the newspaper out of her pocket. She read it as she went, having somehow perfected the skill of reading and walking at the same time. Such was her chakra control and stamina that sometimes she walked up walls and across ceilings without noticing, startling any civilians who might've been watching. Naruto thought that it was hilarious.

He went home, munching on his dango.

**A—Ж—N**

After a few hours spent procrastinating, Naruto walked down to the Hokage Tower with the ryo earned from Wave Country jingling in his pockets. After the death of Gato and the liberation of an entire coastal economy, the pay and mission level was upgraded to A-rank, mostly for their involvement in a fight that should have only been between Zabuza and Kakashi. Haku had the potential to be 'appropriated', whatever that meant, but the Ice Release wielder was beyond Konoha's reach, thanks to Kakashi.

Naruto sometimes thought of the money as dirty, because it came at the expense of the most loyal ninja he'd ever met and a desperate man trying to liberate his country. Kakashi hadn't said as much when Naruto voiced these concerns, but his impression was that shinobi made a lot of money this way.

Well, if he had the money for it, he was going to use it. Naruto wouldn't say he was hated or feared by the villagers, and certainly none of them crossed the street when they passed him, there was always...revulsion. They almost never voluntarily spent time with him, and when they did it was never with children in the vicinity. The only adults with any great influence in his life were the Hokage and the instructors at the Academy. Naruto never paid much attention to the latter, possibly a contributing factor to his continued mediocrity.

The fact was, like it or not, you couldn't improve on your own. You needed another person to serve as teacher, sparring partner or apprentice. Even teaching others occasionally gave you insight, but only masters could gain skill by observing themselves.

Naruto was familiar with the mission system's workings on the shinobi side. A bulletin board hosted the sheets of D-ranks, next to a filing system for C and B-ranks for chuunin and genin cells. A and above needed to be assigned or approved by the Hokage himself, and S-rank was only approved for the most suicidal, large-scale operations imaginable. Naruto was only tangentially aware of what clients did.

In the ninja world, 'client' was a word offered various degrees of respect. Professionals like Kakashi treated them with courtesy and did as they asked on a mission, while slightly laxer ninja occasionally told them off and were generally less polite. Either way, as the client was the one paying, they held ultimate authority over the ninja. What they could order was dictated by the classification of a mission and the amount of money paid.

What Naruto _didn't_ know was that there was a metric shit-ton of paperwork to fill out in order to hire from Konoha.

"How old are ya, honey?" asked an elderly lady behind the desk.

"Thirteen," Naruto answered.

"Any guardians, or are you emancipated?"

"Emanci_what_?"

She sighed. "Do ya live with any grownups?"

"Oh. No."

From underneath the desk, she produced thirty sheets of paper bound by a paperclip. Naruto ogled at it, especially when she threw a pen on top of it.

"Ya gotta fill this out, 'kay?" the secretary said. "Then just throw it in the pile and wait for someone to come get it."

Morosely, Naruto took his first-ever taste of the job of Hokage to a nearby table, where he sat down and looked at the first page. Name, age, citizenship and country of birth were easy. Moving down, past the relatively short list of qualifications for civilians, Naruto groaned at the box marked 'Ninja?'.

He filled out his rank, loyalties, ninja registration number, reaffirmed he was from Konoha, put down his mission history, teammates and all past and present teachers, listed contact information, and signed a waiver stating that, as his employer, Konoha had the right to seriously curtail his freedom or execute him for breaking the law. It was a bit redundant, but he signed anyways.

Three pages in, Naruto looked up at some of the signs on the wall. One warned that attempting to lie to or cheat with ninja was tantamount to suicide. It sarcastically suggested seppuku as a less bloody and painful alternative. Naruto though of Tazuna's loquacious and ultimately successful attempt to scam them.

There was another that suggested tutors were best if selected from the range of jonin and tokubetsu jonin. Any such mission was automatically a B-rank, though the price was subject to the whims of the tutor and the client. He wrote the suggested rank of the mission as B, under which he scrawled 'private instructor' as the description.

Near the top of page twenty-eight, which was a copy of page six for a different filing system, the Hokage himself came to see him. Sarutobi Hiruzen appeared in a puff of smoke behind Naruto, who went on filling out the application.

"A mission, Naruto-kun? What do you need to hire ninja for?"

"Stupid Kakashi-sensei," Naruto muttered. "Stupid chuunin exams, stupid Gaara, stupid paperwork."

The Hokage shook with silent laughter, correctly interpreting the source of Naruto's frustration. His untidy handwriting filled most of the pages required to buy ninja services, triplicate in some cases. Konoha liked to keep a tidy record of all missions, so that future generations could look back at the mission reports and determine what had gone wrong. It was almost never used, but the logs had been of such great use in recent years that Sarutobi was disinclined to discontinue the practice, as much as he wanted to.

"Having the job of Hokage means you have to do a lot of this," he informed Naruto.

"Huh?"

"All missions above B-rank need to be approved by me, although those aren't as common as C and D-ranks," Sarutobi explained.

"You have to do this? Every day?" Naruto gasped. Ahead of him, the shining path from genin to Hokage had abruptly darkened. His brain felt numb from just ten minutes of reciting every financial transaction between him and the government (two dozen D-ranks and an A-rank, monthly stipend), but doing this all the time?

"Yes," the Sandaime said, his voice brimming with ennui.

"Hell," Naruto grumbled, resuming the torturous exercise. "When I'm Hokage, all of this bullshit will be my assistant's job."

"If you say so," Sarutobi said knowingly. He waited for Naruto to finish filing the mission, then signed his own name on the pages. The seventh page was the actual mission description, which was dropped directly into a basket. Sarutobi swept the rest away, intending to deal with it later.

"You're hiring a jonin or tokubetsu jonin," he told Naruto. "In all of Konoha, there are about eighty of those. Right now, I would say twenty are on missions, and a further fifteen have genin cells. You may need to wait a bit before someone picks your mission up."

"Yeah," Naruto muttered.

Sarutobi left, and Naruto sat there in the waiting room with a dozen other civilians for twenty minutes as shinobi came and went, handing in their assignments and taking new ones. He noticed that most of the clients had a wealthy, polished look to them. They had the airs of men and women with the money and power to afford Konoha's services. He felt dirty in comparison.

Just as he was wondering if he'd be there for hours and hours before some jonin he'd never heard of would come in and take the mission, Mitarashi Anko waltzed in. Naruto had a bad feeling that she was there for something in particular. The examiner started flitting through the B-rank missions, evidently in need of entertainment and revenue after the end of her involvement in the chuunin selection exams.

She grabbed Naruto's file and read it. Her jaw dropped.

"Alright, where's the brat offering eight hundred grand for a month of training?!"

**A—Ж—N**

She took Naruto to training ground sixteen, which consisted of a set of tall wooden poles pounded into the ground. They served as small platforms for practicing acrobatics and as targets, many of them peppered with shuriken and other thrown weapons from past training sessions.

Anko considered the grubby boy carefully. On the one hand, this kind of money meant food for months, not to mention paying the rent on her palatial apartment and all the booze she could drink. On the other, even _she_ had a measure of distrust for the jinchuuriki of the nine-tailed fox. Hypocritical, maybe, considering the village's attitude towards her over much of her life. But that distrust was well earned, as was Naruto's.

"Where did you get this money?" she asked loudly. "A genin like you has _no way_ of getting this much cash. Did Hokage-sama give it to you?"

Naruto waved her concern away. "Nah, I got it from Kakashi-sensei. It's part of the bounty we collected on Momochi Zabuza."

Anko squinted at him, remembering. "Yeah, they did say the Demon of the Mist died a while ago," she allowed. "Never thought it would be a genin team. I assume you killed him? Otherwise Kakashi would never share the bounty, stingy bastard."

"I, erm, I didn't kill him," Naruto said truthfully. "He died after fighting a bunch of guys with nothing but a kunai between his teeth."

Anko looked at him. It was so strange she decided he was probably telling the truth, but she would check with Kakashi later.

"Right...so, Zabuza Momochi, with a bounty of 40 million ryo on his head and a legendary weapon that requires special training to wield. And your sensei only gave you 800'000 ryo?"

"He actually gave me three million and a bit," said Naruto, "but I'm saving some. I think it was half for the village, ten million for himself, and then we split the rest."

"Don't you have any more for your brand new sensei?" Anko asked flirtatiously. Naruto pushed her out of his face, trying to ignore her provocative dress.

"So you'll do it?"

"We'll see about that," Anko said pompously. "This is a mission, but I haven't taken it yet. I won't touch your money if you aren't worthy of being my apprentice, and all of the jonin have their own little tests to see if they've got prodigies or dunces. Question is, are you a prodigy or a dunce?"

She pulled out a packet of senbon and threw it at the nearest pole. Without even taking the packaging off, the metal needles tore it apart and embedded themselves in a perfect Leaf symbol, identical to the one on both of their forehead protectors. There was a light tinkling noise as the remainder of the needles fell to the ground amidst the shredded plastic of the wrapping.

"This is the Senbon Test," Anko declared. "It's a bit longer than the Bell test or the Ring Test, but it's also different from both. Rather than testing teamwork or information gathering, the Senbon Test can only be passed by naturally talented shinobi. You have two days to be able to throw at least twenty senbon at once and make a Leaf mark. I know that the Academy doesn't teach that, and neither does Kakashi. So, you'll either have to learn how to do it yourself... or get someone to teach you."

"_What_?" Naruto cried. "How am I supposed to get that good with senbon in just two days?"

Anko shrugged casually. "Get Hokage-sama to teach you, you're pretty close to him. Any of the jonin could teach you, but they're all training their genin for the finals. Get someone, I don't care. Charisma, intellect, ingenuity, you gotta have this if you're going to learn from the best."

It was when she called herself the best that Naruto resolved to beat the Senbon Test like his redheaded stepchild and make Anko teach him, because dammit, _he_ was the best! And the best deserved to be trained by the best.

"I'll be back the day after tomorrow, Anko-sensei, and I'll pass this test if it's the last thing I do," he promised.

**A—Ж—N**

Naruto briefly toyed with the idea of begging lessons off of Sarutobi, but ultimately decided against it. He needed every second of the next forty-eight hours to bring up his skill, and the Hokage couldn't give him that much attention. Also, he didn't know that Sarutobi had any particular skill with senbon at all, though it was overwhelmingly likely.

Instead, he decided on a tried-and-true method of getting what he wanted: blackmail. Normally, Naruto was loathe to use incriminating photos and mementos against other people, but the pictures of Iruka wearing a pink kimono after a particularly clever prank were the beginning of a slippery slope. It just so happened that if learning how to throw multiple senbon with deadly accuracy in two days, there was only one man for the job.

It was about eight in the evening. Kakashi and Sasuke had already left to train for the tournament, and Sakura was probably at home reading or practicing her own taijutsu. Naruto knew who he was looking for, but it took a trip to the records office to find his home address.

His target lived in an actual house, sandwiched between another house in the suburbs and a corner store that Naruto bought milk from sometimes. He entered through a back window carelessly left open, disarming a few traps along the way, and waited for the man to get home.

Shiranui Genma came in a few minutes later, not drunk yet but obviously preparing to be. He dumped his flak jacket on his stairs, flipped his bandanna onto the kitchen table and mussed his brown hair a bit.

"Hello!" Naruto shouted jovially, perhaps forgetting that surprising even a relaxed tokubetsu jonin isn't the sanest idea. Fortunately, he had the foresight to replace himself with a shadow clone earlier, and now the five senbon thrown (two per hand and one spat) only hit the fabric of the couch.

"What the fuck?" Genma said eloquently.

"Your name is Genma, right?" Naruto asked. His new shadow clone, created from an upstairs vantage point, appeared in place of the old one. The senbon prickled against his back uncomfortably, but not so badly as to dispel him.

Genma's stance lightened somewhat as he realized who the boy in his house was. "Get the hell outta here kid, I got places to be."

"Not any more you don't," Naruto said ominously. "Remember this?"

He was holding a trio of photographs, all of them depicting Genma in one way or another. The first was him sitting on a bench next to a dark-haired woman, his arm wrapped around her neck. The second was the same, only in this one they were cleaning each other's tonsils. And the third one was the two of them in bed, Genma smoking a cigarette while the girl looked at him adoringly. The camera angle was bad for all three, but the other woman was clearly Inuzuka Hana.

With a hiss, Genma darted forward and shredded each of them with his bare hands. Naruto didn't even try to stop him.

"Come on, d'you really think I'd forget to make copies?" he said cheerfully. Genma groaned.

"Just think of what Tsume—"

"What do you want?" Genma muttered. Naruto's smile grew triumphant.

"Teach me how to throw senbon in two days, or Kiba's mom gets them!"

Genma abruptly rolled his eyes and turned away.

"Your sensei is the psycho-bitch?" he said. "No wonder you're trying to blackmail me. The Senbon Test is almost impossible to pass. In fact," he mused, "the only team to ever pass it was Mitarashi-san's. Still, her solution was pretty clever."

"Tell me!" Naruto said eagerly.

"Nope. You gotta figure it out yourself, like the Bell Test and the Ring Test."

Naruto help up the incriminating pictures. "I'm not giving you a choice!" he sang.

Genma sighed, mentally cancelling his plans for the next two days. "You two bastards are perfect for each other," he said.

**A—Ж—N**

Anko was waiting in training ground sixteen two days later, a rolled up scroll in one hand and a stick of her favourite food in the other. Naruto marched in, trailing smoke behind him at the gate as he passed. Anko wondered how he would fail. Some begged off, other tried and messed up royally. Even Genma couldn't pass the senbon test as a genin, despite the Shiranui family's penchant for teaching their use.

"Bad shunshin? Those suck," she said, "but you get used to it. Now, are you ready to show me how awesome you are?"

"I'm plenty awesome!" Naruto said indignantly.

"Put your money where your mouth is," Anko demanded, stuffing the last of the dango in her mouth.

Somewhat anticlimactically, Naruto pulled out twenty senbon and threw them at the nearest post, where they formed a perfect Konoha emblem. The stick fell out of Anko's mouth in shock.

"How—?"

"I told you I'd pass!" Naruto crowed.

Anko studied him carefully. Naruto seemed relaxed... almost _too_ relaxed, and his hand didn't look nearly as raw from pinpricks as it should have. Naruto had definitely spent two straight days practicing his throw, but without enough sleep in between.

"How did you get here this morning?" she asked innocently.

"I wal– er, Genma teleported me here."

"So he had you smoking something, did he?" Anko said fiendishly. "Eucommia is more effective when eaten than smoked, but he wouldn't know that. Genma never needed that shit. So, can I assume that if I asked you to throw the senbon again, you could make a regular ol' circle? How 'bout a square? Hell, if you can hit a target right I'll be impressed."

Naruto was slowly turning white. He cast his mind back to the bark Genma had instructed him to smoke, which tasted awful but made his aim orders of magnitude more accurate...to a degree. His muscle memory had pretty much encoded the shape of the Leaf to the exclusion of all else. He drew a few more senbon and threw, but the result could only be generously called an oval with a hump on one side near the bottom of the pole.

Anko leaned back and crossed her arms, appearing extraordinarily pleased.

"I knew you were smart enough to figure it out," she said. "Yeah, the guy who gives you the Ring Test says it's about speed, and Kakashi probably said somethin' else along those lines, but they're really about information gathering and teamwork, respectively. So the Senbon Test is to figure out how well you can cheat. And, well, I used drugs too when I passed it. My asshole teammate Shisui used shunshin to plant the senbon directly in the target and my slightly less asshole teammate Sho used genjutsu. Of course, our sensei saw through us in an instant, but that's not the point."

"So, are you gonna help me win the chuunin exams or what?" Naruto asked, deciding to keep his pictures of Hana and Genma to himself.

Anko handed the scroll to Naruto. Inside, a contract detailed that their training sessions would last for thirty days, starting that day, and at the end Naruto would pay Anko the amount agreed to at the beginning: eight hundred thousand ryo. There wasn't much else, other than a disclaimer that said Naruto's potential death was in no way her fault.

"This doesn't say what you're going to teach me," Naruto complained.

"Well, if you're drugged enough you can make a cool shape with senbon," Anko joked. "Seriously, if I told you that at the beginning, it would take the surprise out of it! Any decent ninja could steal this from under your nose, and then they'd sell your secrets to that ginger runt you're gonna fight."

Naruto mentally conceeded that this was a fair point, and signed his own name under his new sensei's.

Anko took the contract back, making it vanish into a pocket of her enveloping overcoat. Then she pivoted and slammed her heel into Naruto's chest. The powerful kick launched the blond genin backwards, tumbling until he slammed into a tree and fell on his head.

"Lesson one is taijutsu!" Anko hollered, adopting a fighting stance Naruto had never seen before. He hopped to his feet, created two shadow clones as backup, and the first fight began.

* * *

_The writer has not yet read Naruto past Part One. Elements of Part Two will only be present in bits as they read beyond the Kakashi Gaiden. Relevant information has been edited in, such as the prophecy given to Jiraiya. Other information has been disregarded entirely, so Part Two may as well not have happened in this universe._

_This story is rated M for a good reason: no relationship between two people of such differing ages could possibly be fit for a younger audience. Also, there are mentions of some other mature subjects that you'd expect from an 'M' story. It also contains a lengthy, convoluted explanation. That said, if you can stomach the content, enjoy!_

* * *

~Please review.~


	2. The First Lesson

**Sunlight For Leaves**

by _Aegis_

Chapter II: The First Lesson

* * *

Anko was a fierce opponent. Even against a genin with admittedly subpar taijutsu skills, she held back very little. Naruto amassed a new set of bruises on his ribs in the first five minutes, proving once and for all that charging in with your arms spread wide was ridiculous. Even fighting defensively, Anko's probing strikes and lightning speed were enough to knock him flat on his ass whenever she thought he was losing slack. Pretty soon his nose was bleeding profusely, his upper lip and chin stained deep red in the sunlight. Naruto knew enough about injuries to understand it would hurt in about three hours, but right then it was all that motivated him to keep fighting and not fall on his back and stare at the clouds. Acting like Shikamaru never solved anything.

Anko was slowly increasing the pressure on her student, forcing him to contort creatively and move faster and faster to avoid both straight punches and hooks, mixing plain haymakers with twisted aerial attacks and ferocious acrobatics that would do Maito Gai proud. Naruto hissed and spat out a mouthful of blood, wondering if he would have the time to make shadow clones. It was apparent that either Mizuki had seriously underestimated him, or Anko was on a different level altogether. Every time he went to make hand seals she would step up the intensity and move icloser, forcing his arms apart.

She caught Naruto slowly lowering his hands and raised an eyebrow. "Had enough?"

Naruto grimaced. The purpose of the exercise was debatable, but he definitely felt sluggish. He raised his hands in defeat and sat down heavily.

"Water..." he groaned.

"That was terrible," Anko said flatly. "It's like you didn't pay attention to your instructors in the Academy. Taijutsu is an art form, tailored to the individual but uniform to some extent. Most chuunin use an advanced form of karate augmented by superhuman stamina, but others use Goken like your friend with the horrible fashion sense, or substitute kenjutsu instead. _You_ just fucking suck."

"Thanks," Naruto deadpanned.

"You want to beat someone who can use sand as a weapon and a shield? You've gotta be faster. You've gotta hit harder and be harder to hit." Anko smiled a smile that Naruto would come to fear in the weeks to come. "Run laps until I get back."

Naruto said something uncharitable about her ancestry under his breath and wobbled to his feet. He felt his legs wavering under him as he forced himself to start running. Where he was going, he didn't know, but Anko would find him. Anko was thorough like that.

**A—Ж—N**

Anko decided to gather some more information on Gaara, Naruto's first opponent in the final tournament. From what she knew from monitoring the second event, he was the odds-on favourite from Suna, and his entire team should have been promoted to chuunin long ago. Kankuro and Temari, his older siblings, were both experienced and powerful shinobi. Gaara, younger than both by a wide margin, was purported to be the strongest and most ruthless of the three.

She knew their father was the Yondaime Kazekage, a man tasked with guiding Suna through an economic crisis. His signature ability of harnessing gold dust appeared to be handed down to his son, though in some bastardized form. Anko recalled that his predecessor used iron fillings instead.

Gaara was difficult to track down, but eventually she chanced on him and his siblings together with a man she could only assume was their jonin-sensei. The veteran of Suna was fighting with Kankuro against Temari, in a battle that looked to be close to a draw. The kunoichi's nature transformation was so honed that her brother and mentor were unable to get close, and neither could the puppets Anko spotted creeping behind the blonde. Temari would flit forwards and backwards, keeping track of their positions like pawns on a chessboard.

The youngest didn't join in. Gaara, whose small size and anorexic frame belied a preternatural strength and cunning, stood stoically off to the side. His mastery of the sand in his gourd was apparently so great that he didn't feel the need to train. This would've bothered Anko less if it didn't look like his teammates agreed with that stance.

Now that she noticed, camouflaged against a far-off wall as she was, Gaara looked tired. The dark rings around his eyes weren't manifestations of a kekkei genkai or some kind of jutsu, they were just bags. Gaara was an insomniac.

_'One fucked up kid,'_ Anko thought, adjusting her cloak to move slightly to the right. A shuriken thumped into the section of the wall she had vacated. _'Almost like a jinchuuriki, actually. Kinda sad, lonely, a psychopath... Mmm, but Orochimaru-sensei is all of that too. Maybe he's just another Uchiha Itachi. Either way, I got my work cut out for me. If it's true...dunno if even _I_ could beat this guy.'_

That was a bit of an exaggeration. If Anko were truly pressed to kill Gaara, she would use the tried-and-true backstab. Or maybe exploding tags. No kill like overkill, and the crazy runt who threatened casual death and followed up on it warranted the best artillery she could get her hands on. The irony of that concept made a whistling noise as it flew over her head.

Anko made a beeline for the Konoha hospital, leaping across rooftops and thinking quietly. She hadn't been present for Rock Lee's fight with Gaara, but his sensei had. Gai would almost certainly be in Lee's hospital room, and cornering someone who'd seen the fight would help detail Gaara's ability to her. Also, he could potentially suggest a fighting style for Naruto.

The receptionist at the hospital was a much-maligned woman who had gradually become used to ninja who didn't listen to her. Instead, she volunteered Lee's location without much fuss.

Unfortunately, Gai wasn't there. Lee was asleep, maybe even drugged, and nobody was there to suggest where to find someone to whip up the appropriate conversation. Nobody except...

"Hello, Anko-san."

Anko turned around. "How'd ya know I was here?" she asked, fighting off a smirk. Gai was good, but Kurenai Yuuhi was better. At least she didn't speak in an obscure dialect of gibberish.

"I was visiting Hinata-san while she recovers, and she told me you were looking for Lee's room," said Kurenai.

"Gai isn't here," the younger woman groused. "Probably off with Neji doing something youthful or whatever."

Kurenai shivered. "Don't say it like that, it sounds perverted," she advised.

"Says Kurenai-chan," Anko teased, "with all those missions you have with Asuma. I hear you two are thinking of settling down. _Whyyyy_?"

Kurenai wondered how to answer the question without triggering some kind of meltdown. Anko was liable to overreact to simple things like personal slights, while serious things sometimes just slipped by her.

"...I'm pregnant," she finally said.

"NOOOOO!" Anko howled, "Kurenai-chan! You're the only active-duty jonin kunoichi! What's Suna gonna think when they see our only two female jonin are on maternity leave?!"

"Just because Suna hasn't outlawed abortion doesn't mean they'll think any less of us," Kurenai said crossly.

"So the elite face of Konoha is currently all-male, and of all the jonin in the village three percent is now Gai," Anko shot back. "What do you have to say for yourself?!"

"I wish we hadn't run out of condoms."

Both of them maintained serious expressions for a moment, then burst out laughing. Kurenai leaned against the wall, wiping sweat off her brow. Anko was one of her best friends, ever since their friendly rivalry over who could go from tokubetsu jonin to full jonin first. She was witty, crude, perceptive, and an excellent ninja. Kurenai privately thought that she deserved the higher rank between the two of them, but as it was she only had until Anko's promotion to milk as many drinks as possible from her.

"Can we talk for a bit?" Anko asked, sobering.

"Sure, what can I do for you?"

"Tell me about Gaara."

Kurenai shivered again. "Where do I begin? I heard he's the jinchuuriki of Shukaku, but Kakashi-senpai was sort of vague on that. He uses that giant tub to hold sand, and he fights with the stuff rather effectively."

"He's not training," Anko complained.

"Makes sense to me," Kurenai said. "He doesn't sound like he cares about anything, and that includes being a ninja. Sort of bloodthirsty, though. He crippled Rock Lee because a voice in his head told him to."

"The voice of Shukaku, you think?" Anko reasoned. It probably wasn't _actually_ the sand demon sealed in Gaara, just a lesser spirit of the desert. They weren't exactly known for their honesty.

"He called it Mother, but they say that spirit's insane. It could be lying to him, or they could both be nuttier than a ration bar."

"So how good is he?"

"Good enough to beat Lee, and he was– _is_ on Team Gai," said Kurenai. "I'd say between chuunin and jonin, but it's a bit difficult to say. Long range without a doubt, but he took some serious hits from Lee without flinching. That sand is fast enough to block almost anything, and when Lee wore him down a bit it turned out he has this sand armour that shielded him completely. If he's vulnerable to taijutsu, it's better than anything the rookies can offer. Well, maybe not the Uchiha, but the rest of them are toast."

"His opponent is Naruto," Anko supplied. "I'm gonna train him for the next month, see if he has talent or if he's full of hot air."

"Uzumaki Naruto?" Kurenai said, surprised. "He's the one that painted the Hokage's faces pink, right? His victory against Kiba was...startling, to say the least."

She still sounded raw over it. Jonin rarely liked to admit that genin they submitted to the Chuunin Exams weren't ready, and in Kurenai's case they really were. It seemed Naruto had won by a fluke of bodily processes...

"He farted?" Anko exclaimed. "This kid is full of hidden depths or some shit. Kind of reminds me of my own chuunin promotion."

"Flashing your boobs at Sho isn't quite the same thing," Kurenai said wryly.

"You did it to Gai in the next round," Anko pointed out.

"... Bet he still dreams about it."

**A—Ж—N**

Naruto, feeling like his insides were turning to warm mush, was still running two and a half hours later when Anko came back. She had a leather shopping back looped over one arm. As soon as he saw her, Naruto flopped onto his back and closed his eyes.

"Oi!" she shouted, dropping the bag at her feet. It made a suspiciously loud noise hitting the ground, and when Naruto cracked an eyelid open he found that the ground was broken into shards around the point of impact.

"What is that?" he asked in a harsh whisper, lamenting his sore throat and burning muscles.

"Two thousand extra ryo out of your wallet," Anko answered. "Any and all supplies I deem necessary for your training will be purchased by you. It's part of the contract."

"I hate you."

They were weights. Naruto was familiar with the concept of training with weights, especially for running and calisthenics, they were only used to vary workouts and make easy exercises difficult for more physically advanced ninja. Shino and Ino, both taller and stronger than most of their classmates, wore them more frequently.

"By now you might have noticed that ninja like Rock Lee can punch and kick much harder than they logically should be able to," Anko said, "and with good reason. Their training regimes are tailored to include weights, as if they were suddenly hundreds of pounds heavier than they normally are. That way, when the weights are removed their strength appears to skyrocket. Most ninja don't wear their weights all day every day, just for training. This is a hybrid option. We're training you up to the point that you can dodge Gaara's sand, but obviously we can't make you Lee's equal in just a month without some form of steroids. So, medium weights during the day, and you'll take them off at night."

"How do you know—?"

"I got Hayate to show me the tape."

Naruto grudgingly put the leg weights on. They were made of long rectangular bars of unidentifiable metal, belted into a cylinder that cinched tightly around his shins. Anko pulled him to his feet, and he was surprised at how much heavier he felt now that moving his feet was noticeably difficult.

"You'll get over it in a few minutes," Anko advised. "But before we do that, let's talk about your chakra."

"What about it?" Naruto asked, testing the new weight of his legs. It was harder to move, but not so much that he would move less than he normally did.

"The pink-haired one with the book told me that you didn't know what it was when you graduated. Clearly you are some kind of idiot savant, emphasis on _idiot_. Chakra is what we'll be focusing on now, because this is your one and only advantage over Gaara. I spent the time looking for Gaara to see what kind of training he does. He doesn't train."

"_What_?" Naruto exclaimed. "How did he get so good if he doesn't train harder than everyone else?"

"Training harder than everyone else won't necessarily make you the best," Anko said. "Lee trains harder than you ever will, but is he gonna be Hokage? No, and if he can't even use ninjutsu he'll only ever make it to tokubetsu jonin. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Gaara is already what he perceives as the best. Either that or he's insane and doesn't care, which is a possibility. Not that it makes a difference, because obviously he's better than Lee."

"What does that have to do with chakra?" Naruto asked.

"Taijutsu is out," Anko said forlornly. "You need to train it up anyways or Gaara will crush you like he crushed Bushy-Brows, but you need something else to win. What that something else is, and whether it will give you a chance in hell of beating that monster, will depend on how much chakra you have."

"So you wanna know how much chakra I have," Naruto finished. "Good thing I didn't use any on that run."

"How much _do_ you have?" Anko asked, honestly curious. In response, Naruto closed his eyes and forced his chakra system to work faster. His skin started to glow blue, the mystical energy leaking out of his skin and into the air. Anko politely shuffled backwards, and Naruto pushed all of his remaining energy _out_.

**A—Ж—N**

Anko stood up, coughing. Whatever Naruto had just done, there was very little remaining of training ground sixteen. The wooden beams had been blasted down by the facsimile of an explosion generated by a determined Naruto. She was fairly certain that the one time her sensei had exuded pure chakra it was more intense and also less explosive, but Naruto seemed dead-set on bucking her understanding of him. Chakra that behaved differently from the norm was the hallmark of a jinchuuriki, wasn't it? Red and corrosive. Demonic.

But Naruto hadn't used any of the demonic chakra to cause that explosion. It was all blue, all Naruto. Naruto, who apparently had more chakra than the Hokage himself, even without the Kyuubi adding to the mix. That was impossible, or Anko hadn't thought it would be possible. It was, frankly, more unlikely than finding a diamond lying on the side of the road. Yet here he was, impossibility and all.

Naruto himself was comatose on the ground all the way across the training field. He was thankfully uninjured, but without any chakra their training session was brought to a crashing halt. Anko dragged herself over and hefted his body on her shoulder. It was her job as a sensei to take him to the hospital, from which she'd just came, and after that it was her obligation to go out and start preemptively spending some of her paycheque.

**A—Ж—N**

Kakashi observed Sasuke fighting his shadow clones. Part of it was the difficulty involved in effectively fighting as five people at once, but already Sasuke was noticeably better. In a few days he would be more than a match for legions of shadow clones, and then he would be ready to learn the Chidori.

It was a tough choice to part with his masterwork technique, but Kakashi ultimately put his trust in the hands of his teammates. Uchiha Sasuke needed to be promoted to chuunin in the tournament, at which point he would no longer be Kakashi's problem. Then, he could focus his energies on bringing Naruto and Sakura up to par. There was a slim chance that Naruto would be selected as well, which would be good for Sakura but less so for him. He needed more guidance; relying on farts to win fights wouldn't fly in an ambush or a warzone.

Moreso, Naruto was the Kyuubi's jinchuuriki. There were more than a handful of jinchuuriki spattered across the pages of history, and each of them succumbed to the demon they held. Naruto needed to be special, or the nine-tailed fox would devour his soul. Sasuke moved quickly, managing to dispel one of his clones before being backhanded across the field.

"He's impressive, for a genin."

Kakashi's eyes grew impossibly wide and began to sparkle. "Jiraiya-sama," he said reverently.

Jiraiya looked nonplussed at the treatment. "Ah, Kakashi-kun, right? I could never keep those kids of Minato's straight. You aren't Rin, and I think Obito was a Hyuuga or something."

"Maa, I am Hatake Kakashi." Kakashi kept his thoughts on the fictional 'Hyuuga Obito' to himself.

"Right, right, Kakashi," Jiraiya said placatingly. "Listen, much as I'd like to stay and chat, I need to know where Naruto-kun is."

"He's being trained by Ebisu-san for the next month," Kakashi replied. "I called in some favours from Asuma's brother, and he agreed to hold off on training Konohamaru-kun until the tournament rolls around."

"Ebisu?" Jiraiya asked incredulously. "Why aren't you training him yourself?"

The sparkling expression melted off Kakashi's face. "Because I can only train one of them effectively in time to stand a chance against the rest of the competitors. Sasuke is my best student by a wide margin, and with my training he should be promoted to chuunin without too much trouble. Then I can focus on training Naruto and Sakura."

"But Ebisu—"

"Is a tokubetsu jonin and certified instructor," Kakashi said firmly. "Naruto will attend the chuunin selections, and he will win or lose on his own merits. I am doing him a favour with this. He isn't ready."

Jiraiya sighed. "Fine. I take it I can offer my own training?"

"Of course, Jiraiya-sama!" Kakashi enthused, the sparkling eyes returning. "Just remember who he is and what his limits are."

_'That's the problem with the Uzumaki,'_ Jiraiya thought, walking down the mountain from training ground thirty-seven. _'Nobody could ever tell what their limits were until it was too late.'_

**A—Ж—N**

The next day, Naruto woke up in the hospital and immediately discharged himself. It wasn't the most legal action available, but his chakra recovered so much faster than Kakashi's that he was ready to begin training again, albeit lightly. Training ground sixteen had bee mulched, like a titanic hammer had dropped in the middle and cracked the earth in every direction. Naruto figured the hospital officials would be less likely to find him in such an unusable location.

Anko was nowhere to be found, so he began the speed exercises that she described. Sixty straight punches, twenty crescent kicks, ten pushups, repeat. His muscles started to loosen, and Naruto slowly increased the pace of the exercise. Eventually he dropped the pushups altogether and began working on kata. In every ninja's mind, their invisible training partners are always stronger, faster and smarter than they are, but today Naruto's imaginary foes seemed a little slower and duller than usual. Maybe he was improving.

He was just starting the seventh form, which demanded speed and rigorous attention to detail, when voices rose over the din of his clothing rustling. Quickly and without thinking, he dashed across the grounds to a nearby copse and used his oldest and most reliable technique: the Kakuremino no Jutsu.

"Whoa! What happened here?" said a familiar voice.

"It looks like those pictures of Tsunade-sama's battlegrounds," said another, enthralled.

"Don't get your hopes up, she's not in Konoha. None of the sannin– well, I heard Jiraiya-sama is in town, but that was just gossip."

"Yeah, gossip spread by women. Trust me, if anyone knows for certain whether the pervert is in Konoha, it'll be the women."

The first speaker was Sakura, followed by the girl who lost to Temari in the first round. Tenten looked as hale as she had before the match, which ended with her fracturing three ribs on a metal pole after falling two meters. She was probably used to the pain, which might explain why she and Sakura were out and wandering Konoha.

"Think we can use it?" Sakura wondered, stepping lightly on the fractured terrain. She looked about warily, as if Tsunade or someone of equal strength might frown on being interrupted.

"Relax!" Tenten chided, joining her. "It'll be good training, for when we have to fight in some place that's been blown up or destroyed somehow."

A blond man with a horizontal scratch through his Iwa hitai-ate sneezed.

"Hmm. Good idea," said Sakura. "This might be good practice for the next chuunin exams."

They both looked pensive for a moment. Either of them might have been ready for such a promotion, but Tenten's opponent had been orders of magnitude more skilled. Ino had already lost by the time Sakura threw that last shuriken, but her clan's jutsu gave her the edge necessary to beat her one-time friend. Most people considered her the lowest point of the coming tournament, and some speculated she would surrender immediately when it came time to fight Neji.

"Got anything else to show me?" asked Sakura. In response, Tenten drew a sword with a hundred-and-sixty centimetre-long blade and a clawed hilt. It wasn't as detailed as her favourite weapon, a katana with aluminum-plated fullers and a red tassle on the ivory pommel, but it was almost as long as she was tall.

"Wow."

"Yeah, it's brand new," Tenten said proudly. "Imported directly from the Land of Iron, meant for a samurai at least six feet tall. The merchant guy didn't believe me when I said it was mine until I picked it up."

In response, Sakura drew a laughably small metal rod and charged at her sparring partner. Tenten leveraged the oversized sword into a diagonal sweep, which Sakura blocked using the rod. At such close range the sword was useless, so Tenten planted it on the ground and threw her body weight into a kick to Sakura's pelvis.

Sakura stumbled back a few steps, allowing Tenten to swipe the odachi at her again. The short length of available pipe engaged both of Sakura's hands in deflecting, so Sakura pushed forward and tried to throw Tenten's arms off before smashing it into her stomach. Unfortunately for her, Tenten was much stronger, and instead absorbed the push and kicked for Sakura's head. The pink-haired girl dropped to her knees and gave Tenten a solid whack on the shins, buckling her.

Of course, the other girl's talent was impossible to ignore. Annoyed now, Tenten's left hand vanished into her blouse, returning with a scroll. It rolled out behind Sakura and glowed blue before disappearing. The ground changed subtly.

Tenten heaved forward, surprising Sakura. Naruto's teammate fell backwards into a puddle of tar, drenching her in sticky liquid and binding her to the ground.

"Taara Hitsugi no Jutsu," Tenten proclaimed, sneering down at Sakura. "Fuuinjutsu is useful for storing weapons and such, but what about making traps? I made this one a few days ago. What do you think, huh?"

Sakure stood up, still knee-deep in the thick tar. She spat some of the sticky liquid back into the pit, then smiled.

"Magen: Kokoni Arazu no Jutsu."

Tenten adopted an odd expression. She dropped the sword and marched heedlessly into the tar pit.

"Gotcha!" Sakura shouted triumphantly, trying and failing to look successful while covered in tar. Tenten shook the genjutsu off and snarled, lunging forward and tackling Sakura into the tar. They rolled around for a while in the black liquid, completely ruining their clothes while putting each other into half-formed joint locks and finishing moves.

Naruto almost dropped the Cloak of Invisibility right then, intending to find a new training ground to improve his speed, when Tenten and Sakura rolled over one final time, now visible to him through the pitch-coloured layer coating both of them.

They were kissing. Awkwardly, and it only lasted for a few seconds before Tenten casually attempted to dust herself off and stand up, but it was there.

Naruto's mind blanked out. Almost in a dream, he turned and left, carelessly abandoning his disguise behind him as he walked dazedly away. His walk quickly turned into a jog and then into a run, out of the area and down a dirt path. His thoughts were a messy tumble of emotions and ideas, too many to express with the words in his vocabulary.

In the end, he settled on going home, eating ramen, and staring up at the ceiling for the rest of the day.

* * *

_Why is Sakura gay? Because I needed an excuse for Naruto to lose interest in her quickly without conveniently forgetting her._

* * *

~Please review.~


	3. The Contract

**Sunlight For Leaves**

by _Aegis_

Chapter III: The Contract

* * *

To Anko's dismay, Naruto was nowhere to be found for the next few days. Asking around revealed that he had indeed been practicing, but wherever people directed her, he wasn't there. Anko was just beginning to think that he'd given up on her brutal training regime when he showed up at her flat one morning.

He looked dead tired. Like a zombie. His ice-blue eyes appeared dull, scratched and unfocused, and his hair was shredded. Bandages wound their way around both wrists, indicating recent injuries accrued from training. Anko wasn't really sure what to make of it when he walked in past her and started making coffee at her kitchenette.

"Where were you?" she demanded, throwing herself over the kitchen counter into a slide. The effect was supposed to be dramatic, but she only made it halfway into Naruto's field of vision before friction brought her to a stop. She pulled herself the rest of the way. Naruto ignored her, slowly pouring the coffee into a mug before downing all of it, still black, in one go.

"I needed that," he muttered. "Ain't slept longer than, what, four hours?"

"You can tell me why you're here or you can get the hell out," Anko said crossly. "Fuck your money, if you're not gonna show up—"

"Meet me in training ground three in thirty minutes," Naruto went on, dropping the empty cup of coffee in the sink and walking away from Anko yet again.

"Okay, _now_ what?"

"I need to use your shower," Naruto called over his shoulder. "Forgot to pay my water bill, they shut mine off."

The door to Anko's bathroom clicked closed, leaving the homeowner prostrate on her own counter. Sighing, Anko got up and dusted herself off. No stranger to sharing her bathroom with random people, she stuffed the coffee equipment haphazardly back into a cupboard before pulling on her boots and going out to get the newspaper and meet him at the third ground.

At first glance, the third training ground was simply a substitute for the sixteenth, which Naruto had destroyed and someone had subsequently coated in tar. But the third training ground was actually a boon from Sarutobi Hiruzen himself: it was only available for his own use, as well as the use of his students, their students, their students, and so on. Anko had access as a former genin under Orochimaru, and Naruto's sensei was Kakashi, whose sensei was Namikaze Minato, and _his_ sensei was Jiraiya.

Annoyed as she was by Naruto's erratic behaviour and lack of punctuality, Anko decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Call it intuition, but she thought he might have had a surprise up her sleeve.

**A—Ж—N**

When Naruto finally lumbered into training ground three, he looked refreshed. The ragged patches of missing hair had been combed over, and he no longer looked like the walking dead. He bowed perfunctorily as he approached and _attacked_.

The difference between his earlier performance and this one was incredible. Where once he'd been clumsy and uncoordinated, now he was refined and accurate. His speed had been ratcheted from 'sloth' to 'lightning', limbs flying as he viciously pushed his unprepared sense to the brink of a river. She stepped onto the water and allowed him to thrust forward, intending to flip Naruto over onto his back, but Naruto was surprisingly savvy about the tactic. As soon as Anko gripped his wrist he dropped his weight and swept one foot out from underneath her. Anko regained her balance fairly quickly and responded with a one-two to the face, which Naruto blocked.

His stamina had increased too. While before he was panting and tired in the first minute or so, after almost half an hour he'd barely broken a sweat. Anko still had the upper hand, but it was a battle she could only win slowly.

_'Damn, where did this come from?'_ she thought, forearms reverberating with the effort of blocking a roundhouse kick. Naruto was subsequently beaten to the ground, but the fact remained that he had become much faster, stronger and agile.

Anko crouched over his downed body, panting lightly. "Mind telling me what the hell you've been doing for the last couple'a days?" she grunted.

"I...said you...weren't teaching fast...enough..." Naruto gasped.

"Really? You look like Gai worked you over."

"He did," Naruto said balefully.

Anko raised an eyebrow. Gai was exuberant in dispensing training to anyone he deemed youthful, but why would anyone voluntarily search him out? Doing thousands of repetitions only worked if you already had a certain degree of fitness. Or if you were using the sort of drugs that Konoha frowned on. Anko inhaled deeply.

"You don't _smell_ like steroids," Anko said pensively. "What did you do?"

"How can you smell ster-whatever?" Naruto cried, flinching under her penetrating gaze.

"Tokubetsu jonin," Anko answered proudly. "Elite chuunin in all respects except for one: I'm a master tracker. My sense of smell is better than your eyesight, and the scent never lies. What drugs were you using?!"

Finally, Naruto relented. "Soldier pills," he muttered.

"... Soldier pills?" Anko asked, dumbfounded. "Those don't increase your metabolism, do they? Never heard of someone using one outside of combat... Except for the guys who have those contests to see who can eat the most before passing out. The winner is usually...Genma..."

"Genma's got secrets," Naruto said playfully, standing up and dusting himself off. "One of them is that soldier pills not only give you a chakra boost, they _do_ increase your metabolism, and they also make you make chakra faster. I learned that the same way I learned about that disgusting bark stuff, and he knows 'cause he eats way too many of 'em."

"Drugging yourself isn't the answer to everything," Anko said hotly.

"It is if you're trying to win a competition!" Naruto shouted. "I got almost as good as Sasuke-teme in a week, and by the time we fight I'll be the best, believe it!"

"Sen'eijashu!" Anko yelled. Six snakes burst from her sleeve, stretching impossibly long and wrapping themselves around Naruto tightly. She smirked, relishing in Naruto's helplessness as he flailed within the confines of his serpentine bindings.

"You ready to stop mouthing off to me?" she asked lazily, putting a fingertip on his forehead. Naruto smiled.

"Just a clone," he said, disappearing in a puff of smoke. From behind, the real Naruto took his second wind and attacked yet again. This time he employed ninjutsu, spitting shadow clones out as diversions and forcing Anko to fight with them while he hung back and conserved his energy. The soldier pills he'd eaten were still forcing his body to perform at rates faster than could be considered safe, but as long as he ate right after the fight he'd be fine.

"What are trying to prove?" Anko whispered in his ear. Naruto blinked; she had been in front of him just minutes ago, and then she disappeared. Was this the Shunshin, a technique taught to genin but virtually useless to someone without the experience of a master? For Anko to use it so casually...

"Serious question," she went on, bending at the waist to avoid his first punch. "Are you trying to say, 'I'm Uzumaki Naruto and I don't need you!'? But you hired me to train you, so it can't be that. What about, 'Look how awesome I am, I can make half-assed strategies and impress people'? No, that can't be it either, you ain't that stupid...probably."

Naruto was slowly tiring, shedding shadow clones like snakeskin rather than firing them like shuriken, but Anko was speeding up, dispatching them efficiently with quick strokes of a kunai. Bulling his way past the flashing blade, Naruto punched Anko in the gut and received an elbow to the head for his trouble. Starburst exploded behind his eyelids, and he was out like a light.

Anko looked down at Naruto and shrugged. "Or maybe it was an apology," she said to herself, "an 'I'm sorry' or a promise. Whatever. Let's get you back to my apartment."

**A—Ж—N**

Jiraiya, after finally getting Naruto's home address out of an irritable desk worker, was dismayed to find the apartment empty. A brief search revealed only out-of-date cups of instant ramen, a pair of orange-tinted goggles and a photograph of Team Seven lying on an empty dresser. Even the water was shut off, which could only be bad news. The toad sage sat down on the bed, head resting in his hands and thinking carefully. Where would a hyperactive jinchuuriki missing half his regular squad be during the day? And worse, why was his water off? Not even demon containers were paid _that_ badly...

The guilt of abandoning his godson for a decade of his life was crushing, and Jiraiya felt even more miserable when he considered the usual burden of a jinchuuriki. He barely even knew what kind of person that pain had shaped Naruto into, and the most he could get out people without violating the taboo of the Yondaime's secret was that he played pranks. Was he a trickster, wallowing in schadenfreude as his victims suffered? Was he a casual mischief-maker? Did he do it for the attention, to stave off the yawning void of loneliness? Or did he have friends, the childhood that Gaara could only wish for?

"I wish it could be different..." he said aloud. Jiraiya had many regrets over his fifty years of life, almost too many to name. Nagato, Yahiko, Konan, Kushina, Minato, Dan, Tsunade, Orochimaru and Naruto all weighed heavily on his conscience, but none so heavily as Naruto.

To be fair, he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to take on a new apprentice. The Great Toad Sage once said that his choice would change the destiny of the entire world, and quite frankly Jiraiya did not like those stakes. Perhaps change would be better off undone, with his only two apprentices dead and gone. If only Jiraiya could have never heard those words from the wrinkled toad's mouth, he would be a happier man.

"Who are you and what are you– Jiraiya-sama?"

He glanced up. "Hello, Book-chan," he teased. "Why are _you_ here?"

Sakura looked away, embarrassed. "I found that stupid bed sheet Naruto uses to pretend to hide," she muttered, "and I thought I'd bring it back." She held out a neatly folded square of cloth with a camouflage pattern printed on it.

Jiraiya said nothing as she deposited the ratty thing on the small bed, noting that nothing in the apartment had been washed in a long time, themselves included. As she left, he threw some parting words at the pink-haired girl.

"I know it doesn't seem like it, but Kakashi-san cares about you. He cares about all of you, because that's a teacher's job. If you have _any_ problems, he'll be happy to listen to you, no matter what."

Sakura turned around slowly. "How did you know?" she whispered.

"My dear, I am the GREAT AND GALLANT JIRAIYA!" he proclaimed, jumping into a one-legged pose. "I AM AN INFAMOUS PURVEYOR OF WOMEN! IT IS MY DUTY AND PLEASURE TO BE AWARE OF IT!"

She smiled gratefully and left, a deep burden seemingly lifted from her shoulders. Jiraiya watched her leave and briefly thought of Tsunade.

_'Regrets weigh you down,'_ he decided. _'I made the choice to live for the future. I only need to find Naruto.'_

**A—Ж—N**

Anko extracted an irate Naruto from her mess of bedsheets and kicked him back into the kitchen. He howled about the unfairness of life for a bit, until she came back out later with the salami.

"Why do you have lunchmeat in your bedroom?" asked the jinchuuriki, more than a little curious.

"I keep a little of everything in my bedroom, Naruto-kun," Anko said breezily. "You still have much to learn in the ways of the legendary ninja, like how to fight with a hangover and how to survive being a prisoner of war for extended periods of time. Both involve keeping meat in your room."

"Can those lessons wait?" he asked, feeling a little green.

"For now," Anko said generously. "Your next lesson is the most important jutsu anyone will ever teach you. All jonin know a variation of this technique, and it's important that you do too."

The hand seals were boar, dog, bird, monkey, ram. Anko made Naruto repeat the sequence without chakra until he was thoroughly bored. She seemed unusually intent on him mastering this omnipresent technique, so he kept his mouth shut until she was satisfied he wouldn't leave out the monkey seal and turn it into a Raiton technique by accident.

"Okay, that's good enough," she finally said. "Now, here's what it does. Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"

Anko slapped her right hand against the table, and a viper as long as she was tall wound its way around her arm and torso. It hissed something at her, and, disconcertingly, she hissed back.

"This is my favourite summon," Anko explained, rubbing the gargantuan snake's head fondly. "Most ninja have one. Kakashi-san uses Pakkun the most, Gai-san relies on Ningame, and Sarutobi-sama occasionally summons Enma."

"Is he tame, Anko-sensei?" Naruto wondered.

"Tame?" Anko laughed. "Summons are only loyal to their contractors and their masters. Yuudokuna here is my friend, but she'll bite you in the arse if she gets the chance."

"Eh heh..."

Just his luck to pick up the ninja equivalent of the crazy cat lady: crazy snake lady was almost too mild of a description for Anko. She even looked happy with a venomous snake wrapped around her body.

"There are two ways we can go about giving this technique to you. Any spirit domain you sign a contract with, you can summon from. If I were to give you my snake contract, you could sign it and that would be that. Or, you can make your own contract with a different type of summon."

Naruto eyed the viper warily, and quickly came to the conclusion that summoning snakes would be one more step on the path to madness and torturing poor defenceless genin-soon-to-be-chuunin.

"I think I'll write my own, thanks," he said hastily.

They busied themselves over lunch with the details of actually contracting a summon. Anko explained the various clauses and wordings, as well as the fact that any summon could summon its summoner. Each spirit animal had its own domain; Snakes had Ryuuchi Cave, for example. When he performed the jutsu, he would be sent to the home of the animal that best suited him, and he could bargain for a contract with the summons.

"You have to watch out for a few things," Anko said, her mouth full of sandwich. "Boss summons are about as powerful as true demons, and they don't always sign with less experienced summoners. When you get there, look for one of the second tier of command and write one with them. Any snake can sign on behalf of the snakes, and toad can sign on behalf of the toads, and so on."

"What sort of stuff are they gonna ask for?"

"Depends. I don't know a whole lot about this," Anko admitted. "My sensei was in Ryuuchi Cave when I tried summoning the first time, and he helped me out with all this after he finished laughing his ass off. You're gonna be on your own. I think most of them demand a test of some kind."

Naruto made a face. "So I could literally be summoning anything? What if I get something lame, like slugs...or toads."

"Hey, Yondaime-sama summoned toads! Don't diss their looks, they can hold really big swords and vomit oil and stuff."

"But they're awful!" Naruto cried. "They're, like, green, and green is the worst colour ever! And they have warts, and Iruka-sensei says the Yondaime got his contract from _Jiraiya_!"

"Not a fan of the sannin or their summons?" Anko asked. "Neither am I. Now, are you gonna make those hand seals or what? Anything from a shark to a hawk could be waiting for you!"

"Fine," Naruto grumbled. "Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"

Anko was alone in the kitchen. After some consideration, she finished Naruto's sandwich for him.

**A—Ж—N**

Naruto found himself in a forest of oaks and a white type of tree he didn't recognize. The sky was an interesting shade of mauve, and the sun seemed to be moving around the horizon, rather that over the sky. A few minutes after making that startling realization, Naruto wandered into a copse that had been charred black.

"What the hell is wrong with this place?" he murmured, running his fingers over the ruined bark. The trees had either been burned incompetently, or smashed and painted black. Naruto didn't see any other way it could be the only stand destroyed with so many others nearby.

He was quickly proven wrong. Hours passed, and he ran into three other copses that had been wrecked, each tree scorched from branches to roots. Naruto kept his ears open for sounds of life, but not even birds chirped. No hunters prowled or prey fled, and he was beginning to wonder if he had stumbled into a dead realm.

He crouched on the dirt, carefully scrutinizing a patch for earthworms or something. What could you do with an earthworm contract? How could an earthworm even sign a contract?! This was getting ridiculous!

"Does anything live here?!" Naruto bellowed. "Where are you?!"

"I'm right here."

"AAAAAHH!"

The other speaker was an orange and white lump the size of a boulder. It moved with a sloth's speed, yet somehow managed to sneak up on Naruto without any noise and subsequently scare him into a tree.

The slug inspected Naruto's head, which was developing a goose egg already. "Oh my, I do hope that doesn't hurt too much," it said.

Naruto jerked to his feet, already preparing an escape from the incredibly mobile pile of slime. It waved its feelers in the air, trying to diffuse Naruto's fear.

"Wait, please," it said. "Why do you come to Shikkotsu Forest?"

"What...what are you?" Naruto panted, dropping his hands and relaxing when he saw there would be no fight forthcoming.

"I am a slug," said the slug. "More to the point, I am the servant of Katsuyu-sama and I want to know why you intrude on our sacred grounds."

"Slugs?" Naruto groaned. "I wish I just signed the snake contract!"

"You wish to summons slugs?" the slug asked, sounding sibilantly surprised. "Very few venture here for that purpose. Mainly it is the toads, for the toads eat us. If you wish to sign, I suppose we can write a—"

"No, no, no!" Naruto shouted. "You're supposed to test me first! You know, make sure I'm worthy of your power or something?"

"I– I do not know what to say," said the very confused slug. "Katsuyu-sama serves Tsunade-chan, and as far as I know they had no contest of strength to determine their pact."

Naruto was frustrated beyond all belief. He _knew_ there was supposed to be some kind of ritual: that's how it worked. "If you don't think of something soon, _I'm going to walk home_," he said darkly.

If slugs could frown, the orange one would have frowned. "Are you certain?"

Naruto's expression answered for him. The look of determination in his eyes could have lit a candle.

"Very well," the slug said reluctantly. "If you can avoid defeat for three minutes, I will allow you to contract me."

"So to win, I have to not lose? What if I just win?"

The slug rippled restlessly. "Do we have an accord?"

"Yeah, deal. Now fight me!"

The slug reared back and spat a glob of something sticky at Naruto. He dodged easily, but flecks of the saliva caught on his clothes. The majority smashed into one of the nearby oaks, coating most of the trunk and eating through it entirely. Naruto yelled something profane as he dodged the falling tree, but the slug was already on his tail.

"You spit acid?!" Naruto shouted gleefully. "That's fucking amazing!"

"Fifteen of one hundred eighty seconds have elapsed," the slug commented. "You must conserve your energy if you wish to survive."

"Conserve THIS!" the blonde screamed, leaping backwards over the slug's massive body and plunging a kunai into its back. His arm sank into the soft body up to the elbow, and the slug didn't seem fazed. It swivelled its head around, the eye stalks focused intently on Naruto.

"That tickles," it deadpanned. Naruto's eyes widened, just before another ball of acid nearly took his head off. He yanked on his arm with all his might, and he popped out of the orange flesh with a startled yelp. The slug turned and advanced inexorably, driving Naruto away from cover and into a decimated clearing.

"Two thirds of your time remain," it said.

Naruto had the stamina to run for two more minutes, but the slug had more tricks up its metaphysical sleeve. Naruto ducked behind a lone remaining tree to get out of the line of fire, but the slug had preempted him. A white blob with orange patches already clung to the backside of the tree, firing its deadly payload at Naruto as he backpedaled frantically.

He darted across the clearing, zigzagging erratically and dodging the acid as it rained down on him. The slug counted two minutes down and decided to increase the difficulty by splitting into hundreds of copies and vanishing into the earth.

"What the hell?" Naruto shouted. The acid was now coming from all directions, forcing him to execute some complicated acrobatics to keep himself intact. The largest slug was humming a nameless tune, behaving more like a hunter with quarry in its sights than a garden pest.

The slugs were crawling towards Naruto's feet, scores of smaller ones blotting out the ground while larger ones acted as artillery from behind. More and more emerged from the ground, advancing with quiet confidence while the area Naruto had to use shrank slowly.

Suddenly, they all vanished, leaving only the original slug. "Perhaps a relatively short test, but you have demonstrated your competence. I would be proud to accompany you on your missions."

"Slugs..." Naruto breathed. "Slugs are awesome!"

"I am glad you agree," said the slug. "If you have a contract, we can—"

"You spit freakin' acid! And you can clone yourself! Like me! Only Kakashi-sensei can clone himself like me!"

As it turned out, slugs _could_ write. It involved some extremely awkward maneuvering and unusual liquids, but eventually the slug had written up a contract in impeccable handwriting. Naruto was slightly annoyed that a slug had better handwriting than him, but this one was an _elite_ slug. It was more like another sensei than a servant.

"Sign, please."

"With what?" Naruto asked. "I don't have a pen or nothin'."

The slug gave Naruto an unamused look, or so Naruto assumed. They didn't really have conventional facial features. "Cut your thumb and use the blood."

Naruto regarded his right thumb nervously, then bit it hard and smeared the blood liberally on his index finger. As neatly as possible, he wrote 'Uzumaki Naruto' in red letters.

The slug spat on the contract, and the acid resolved itself into a black burn shaped as a kanji. 'Senshi.'

"When you have need of the slugs' aid, simply spread your blood and summon us," said Senshi.

"Right. Listen, how do I_II_AAAAAAARRGH!"

Naruto grabbed his elbow in astonishment as a black tattoo spiderwebbed across the unblemished skin. Senshi nodded apologetically, and the world went dark as pain lanced through his arm.

**A—Ж—N**

Naruto reappeared in Anko's kitchen with a new tattoo and a rolled scroll clenched in his right hand. He rubbed his forehead and sat up, noticing that his sensei seemed nervous.

"What happened?" she asked warily.

"I got a tattoo," he said shortly.

"Oh. Want some more lunch? I ordered takeout."

"Thanks. Where from?"

"That place just down the road. They serve some mean Water Country shellfish."

"Don't mind if I do."

* * *

~Please review.~


	4. The Origin of Power

**Sunlight For Leaves**

by _Aegis_

Chapter IV: The Origin of Power

* * *

Anko found that her teaching methods tended towards the trial by fire. When Naruto asked how to cook fish, she plunked him down in front of a barbecue and ordered trout for dinner. When he wanted to improve his chakra control, she took him to the leech-infested waters of Training Ground Forty-Four and waited for all of two minutes for him to get the hang of it. When he asked how to defeat a jinchuuriki, however, she was stumped.

"Why do you want that kind of training?" she asked. "It takes an A-class ninja to even _think_ of going up against a demon container."

She knew _exactly_ why he wanted to know, but better to get permission for these things so Sarutobi-sama wouldn't make her feel guilty afterwards.

"Eh, no reason," Naruto replied.

Of course, that was hardly a satisfying answer, so the next day Anko took a quick trip to the Hokage's residence and came back.

"This," she announced to her new tenant, "is a written permission from Hokage-sama for, ahem: 'One Mitarashi Anko to discuss a classified military secret with one Uzumaki Naruto, specifically the matter of the Nine-Tailed Kitsune's imprisonment.' So, tell Anko-sensei what's up."

Naruto sighed. "So you know."

Anko nodded. "It isn't a very well-kept secret."

"A few days ago, I went in to visit Rock Lee. Gaara roughed him up pretty badly in the preliminaries, and the doctors don't know if he'll ever wake up. Gaara was there too, and Shikamaru and I had to stop him from killing Lee. Long story short, he's a jinchuuriki as well. I need to know more about Shukaku and how to beat it."

"Shukaku?" The surprise in Anko's voice outweighed the disbelief. She thought Kurenai had been mistaken, but evidently not. "Shukaku is the Tanuki demon. Hundreds of years ago, a priest from Sunagakure hunted it down and sealed it in himself. That's why jinchuuriki exist, to seal away and banish demons. Something must'a gone wrong, 'cause their souls fused together and Shukaku gained control of the sand. The Shodai Kazekage sealed it all up in a teakettle, and that was that."

"Gaara mentioned that his father put Shukaku in him before he was born," Naruto said, brow furrowed. "Sand needed stronger ninja..."

"That's sounds about right. The Yondaime Kazekage increased his standards a few years ago. Hidden Sand has half the ninja most of the rest of the shinobi villages do, but all of them are relatively elite. Their genin are on par with our chuunin, their chuunin are pretty damn powerful, and only a few jonin ever come from Suna. Same with Hidden Grass and Hidden Cloud. Anyways, Shukaku has complete control over sand, but more importantly Shukaku is a Tanuki. It is at least as clever and powerful as a Kitsune demon, if not more so. They've matched wits time and again throughout history. Do you see where I'm going with this?"

Naruto nodded gravely. "That makes sense. Gaara must be in control of it, or he wouldn't be so strong."

"Or it could be controlling him," Anko rebuked. "Jinchuuriki who let their guard down around their demon end up like that priest from Suna: mad."

"So how do I control the Kyuubi?" he asked plaintively.

Anko threw her hands up. "No fucking clue. The only thing I know is that principal derived abilities are programmed into the fuuinjutsu directly. Dunno exactly what that means, I just read the sealing textbook, but the gist is that anything you can get from the Nine-Tails, you already have."

"...What?"

"You have tonnes of chakra and you heal pretty quickly. That's about it," Anko summarised.

"Actually, I can draw on the fox's chakra directly," Naruto admitted sheepishly. "I did that on my first C-rank mission to fight some samurai."

Anko looked alarmed at the prospect. "You can let it out?" she breathed.

Naruto jumped up defensively. "I didn't, I didn't!" he yelled. "I just told him to pay the rent on livin' in my belly!"

"Never again," Anko ordered coldly. "You can't even _allow the possibility_ of the Kyuubi escaping. Konoha doesn't have the means to seal it away again, and the next time we might really all be doomed. Not that you'll know, you'll be dead. A jinchuuriki can't survive having its demon ripped out."

Naruto had gone decidedly white, and that was the end of their conversation.

**A—Ж—N**

Sakura spent a little while debating the pros and cons of the Kurama clan before she went with Kurenai. With the bounty from Zabuza's head in hand, she located the Yuuhi household and skipped out on training with Ebisu and Konohamaru for the day.

Kurenai's father answered the door. He was a heavyset older man who wore a bandanna to cover his war wounds. An ostentatious katana hung at his hip, and Sakura was reminded of her girlfriend's weaponry.

"Is Kurenai-sensei home, Yuuhi-san?" she asked politely. The man nodded and got out of her way, and Sakura walked in.

Their home was spartan and decorated sparsely with appropriate war trophies. Sakura noticed a few Suna and Iwa weapons, and in a place of honour lay the three-pronged kunai of his commander: Namikaze Minato.

"Sakura-chan?"

Kurenai looked tired, but she nevertheless invited Sakura into her living room. There was tea out already, and Sakura gratefully accepted a cup.

"So, what brings you here? Shouldn't you be with Kakashi-senpai right now?"

Sakura frowned. "Kakashi-sensei is training with Sasuke-kun, and Naruto found his own teacher."

_'That's right, Jiraiya-sama is in town,'_ Kurenai thought. _'He'd be training the brat, Hiruzen-sama probably ordered him to.'_

"You want me to teach you genjutsu?" the red-eyed woman guessed. "I'm sorry, but I already have a genin team. Hinata, Shino and Kiba all need my help, especially Shino. He has to fight a wind user from Suna in the tournament, and I need to focus quite a bit on his training."

"Shino won't win this battle on the strength of genjutsu alone," Sakura pressed. "He can handle his training alone, can't he? And he might even be better off with an actual wind user to train with."

"Those are rare in Konoha," Kurenai said wearily.

"I can pay you?" Sakura offered weakly. Kurenai was more interested in the money than Sakura's justification, but she decided to let it go for the moment. Raising a child was too bloody expensive.

"Learning genjutsu is a steep road," she lectured. "In the beginning it's easy, but the leaps to mastery are hard ones. If you have three thousand ryo, I'll give you my books and notes. Master every technique and I'll take you on as an apprentice."

Unfortunately, there were a dozen generic genjutsu techniques for varying situations, and the textbooks described nearly a hundred different specific techniques that produced precisely the results you needed. Sakura's academic mind shivered in fear at the thought of reading so many books, but she held to her resolve and shelled out thirty hundred-ryo notes for the heavy hardcovers.

As she stumbled out the front door, she was dizzily grateful for a distraction from her current relationship problem and eagerly anticipating the challenge.

**A—Ж—N**

"You want me to learn _what_?"

"There are seven classes of offensive jutsu: yin, yang, fire, water, earth, air and lightning. Out of all of those, the last five are the easiest to teach, and only water can be used effectively against Gaara."

Anko was adamant on this point. They argued back and forth the merits of the other elemental types, but Anko pointed out that even knowing his true chakra nature, earth wouldn't be enough and fire, air and lightning would take too long to learn to their fullest potential.

"But if I can create enough heat, can't I hurt him without breaking through the sand?" Naruto asked.

"You might, but how much heat could you create?" Anko shot back. "Sand is versatile, Gaara probably has a thousand and one uses for it, but the one thing nobody can stop is blunt force. Water will give you that and more, and the jutsu I'm teaching you should be enough on its own."

Water was also one of the two elements she could teach, the other being fire.

"You're teaching me one Suiton jutsu and expecting me to fight Gaara?" Naruto asked sceptically. "Why not a Katon jutsu? I can put enough heat into it to bake him, I'm telling you! He doesn't even move!"

"Yes, and do you know _why_ he doesn't move?" Anko asked with deadly calm. "It's because he's _the best_. If you come up with an amazing strategy based on a clearly exploitable weakness, don't use it! Odds are that your opponent knows it and knows how to kill you the minute you try anything they've seen before. Gaara probably uses the Suna Shunshin no Jutsu anyways, and a good Suiton jutsu will be faster than a Katon jutsu of the same calibre."_  
_

"Suna Shunshin...I think Temari used that in the Forest of Death. I didn't know there were different versions of the shunshin technique," Naruto mused.

"Oh, sure," Anko said. "Every good chuunin has a clone technique and a shunshin variant. Konoha uses the Kage Bunshin and the regular Shunshin, but Suna has sand-themed versions of both. Kirigakure uses Mizu Bunshin and the Kage Shunshin...you see the picture. Problem is, both of those techniques aren't for genin. Bunshin take too much chakra, and the Shunshin requires years of practice to travel more than a few metres. Gaara has the experience and the chakra for both; you can't teleport worth shit."

"Alright, fine! I'll learn your stinkin' Suiton jutsu!"

"Then shut the hell up and start meditating!"

Compared to air or lightning, the nature of water was easy to align with. The meditation was made more difficult by Anko hovering around his shoulder, making rude farting noises (and possibly actually farting, he couldn't tell). Water, whether fast or slow or still, was mostly quiet. Until it wasn't, but that was also a part of water's nature: change. Water was predictable, and water was unstoppable. Naruto got into the frame of mind by imagining Senshi's clones advancing slowly on him.

"Are you imagining water?" asked Anko. "Good, I was hoping I wouldn't be able to distract you. Now, I've been told you got the crash course in ninjutsu, but you managed the Kage Bunshin without understanding chakra so I'll keep the lesson short. You've seen fire jutsu, so you know that you knead chakra best in the mouth. Create water using the hand seals dragon, tiger and rabbit, then blow."

Naruto inhaled and held his breath, then circulated chakra quickly in his mouth. It _felt_ wet, but to be sure he formed the hand seals. As he finished, the water became tangible in his mouth and the pressure built to unimaginable heights. He opened his mouth...

Training Ground Three now had a new river. Anko stared in surprise as the Suiton: Mizurappa dug a trench in the ground out to the pond, which drained back into the trench as the jutsu died and filled it with water anew.

"We could rent you out as a landscaper for the daimyo," she murmured. "Uh, excellent job, Naruto-kun."

Naruto opened his eyes and grinned devilishly. "Who says I'm done, Anko-sensei?"

His attempt to knock her head off her shoulders with a water blast would have been successful if she hadn't been forewarned. As a result, Naruto choked on the water as Anko used Shunshin to get behind him and clamp both hands around his mouth. The water backfired, filling his stomach to uncomfortable levels before he managed to shut the chakra off.

Anko took her hands off, and Naruto promptly vomited an impressive spray of gastric acid and water.

"That's what you get for trying to get me all wet," Anko said poutily. "There are other ways you go about doing that."

Despite being unable to breathe and not quite focused on his sensei at all, Naruto found the subconscious energy to blush anyways.

**A—Ж—N**

Tenten found herself wondering what Sakura had gotten up to again. Her pink-haired comrade had the attention span of a butterfly outside of a book, and the temper of a bull. She was a lot like her idol, Tsunade, though not in stature. Tenten rather thought that Sakura had a few years to go before matching Tsunade's breast size. That too was okay, because Tsunade was pushing sixty and Sakura was only a year younger than her.

"You are distracted," said Neji. The Hyuuga was upside-down on a training post, engaged in a sparring exercise that demanded both participants keep one foot on the log at all times lest they suffer gravity's wrath.

"No," Tenten insisted. She refocused a second later, as she too was upside-down and her chakra had been slipping, leaving her dangerously close to falling off. She artfully deflected Neji's open palm strike and retaliated with a flying halo of darts on ninja wire. Neji batted them all away, though the wire allowed her to jerk them back on course. Using the Juuken, Neji violently disrupted her chakra and the darts fell dead.

The storage seals on her belt flashed, and Tenten resumed the inverted fight with a kama in one hand. Neji had the upper hand, as always, but Tenten was sufficiently skilled in hand-to-hand that his stamina and quick reflexes were stretched to the max and pushed beyond. For her, sparring with Neji was the most fulfilling workout she could imagine.

Neji kicked her in the shin and she nearly buckled. "You would never have allowed such a sloppy attack to penetrate your defences," he said archly. "What is taking your mind off of the match?"

Tenten sighed and stepped back, nursing her throbbing shin. "If you must know, I'm in a relationship. The rest of it is none of your damn business."

"I was expecting something more mundane," Neji said after a pause. "Why is this bothering you? I was under the impression that relationships brought happiness to both members."

"You sound like a machine," Tenten grumbled, "and for your information, it's because I'm worried! Being a ninja is dangerous business, and it's my goddamn right to feel afraid. Now that we've settled that—"

Neji clapped the sickle's blade between his hands and kicked Tenten again, this time in the belly.

"Whoever your boyfriend is, I am sure you've chosen him in part due to his competence. He will be fine," Neji insisted. "You, however, are in danger of falling off the log and cracking your skull open, so I would suggest you _pay attention_."

By the end of the sparring match, Tenten had been driven unconscious and Neji had a small wound on his arm. He managed to catch her falling, and he wondered who the lucky bastard he had to scare off was.

**A—Ж—N**

"Anko-sensei, you said something about there being seven types of ninjutsu," Naruto recalled. They were replenishing their chakra stores after the latest sparring match, in which Anko made the executive decision to increase his leg weights because the od ones were too light now.

"Well, seven main ones," said Anko, lying on her back and staring into the sky. "There's stuff like Fuuinjutsu and summoning ninjutsu as well, but those aren't classified the same way. Why do you ask?"

"Well, I met a ninja in Wave Country who could use Ice Release. You didn't mention that on your list." Naruto cocked his head thoughtfully. "Not that Hyoton would be 'specially useful, Gaara could just crack the ice, but why didn't you include it?"

Anko heaved a sigh. She didn't like talking about kekkei genkai, but some subjects needed to be explained outright.

"Your buddy has what we call a bloodline limit," she explained. "One of the two ways to have a kekkei genkai is to perfectly balance two chakra natures. It's pretty much impossible unless your parents can do it, so not many people actually have that anymore. Ice Release is a perfect balance between Wind and Water chakra, for example."

"You said _almost_ impossible," Naruto said suspiciously. "Doesn't there have to be a first person to have a kekkei genkai?"

"Right," Anko replied. "The Shodai Hokage was the first to have the Mokuton, which is a perfect blend of Earth and Water, and recently a family in Iwagakure managed to combine Earth and Lightning. It only happens once in a blue moon, though."

"What's the other way?" Naruto asked eagerly. "Sasuke-teme's eyes are a kekkei genaki, right? And– and Hinata-chan's eyes too! And Shino has bugs everywhere—"

"The Aburame don't have a bloodline limit, they're just strange," Anko remarked. "Hinata's eyes are a kekkei genkai called the byakugan, and it came from a jinchuuriki."

"_What_?" Naruto exclaimed.

"The first Hyuuga," Anko said in a professorial tone, "was a man by the name of Hitsuke. Long before Konoha was founded, a demon was sealed in him. An Oni, I believe, but Iruka-san would know for sure. Anyways, he was immediately blinded and that was that. His son was born with the Oni sealed in him, Hitsuke dying after its extraction, but he could see despite appearing blind. Hitsuke's three grandchildren were all girls, and each could see as well. Over time, the Oni's diluted chakra empowered their eyes into what we know as the Byakugan. Later, a man who married a Hyuuga had children with Sharingan, and they broke off to form the Uchiha clan."

"Sasuke's got mutant eyes?"

Anko slapped her forehead. "Is that all you got out of that?"

Naruto reflected on the exposé. "Uh, and Hinata's a jinchuuriki too?"

"No, you dolt," Anko sighed. "Maybe the first Uchiha was an Oni's jinchuuriki too and that's what caused the mutation, but the original Oni was split into fragments a long time ago. Especially powerful Byakugan like Neji's are because of higher concentrations of demonic chakra. Same with the Nohara clan's kekkei genkai. Their ancestor was the jinchuuriki of a bakeneko, and all of her descendants have the occasional flight kekkei genkai and the instinctive ability to form fire without chakra. It's all to do with whether the demon is extracted before you die."

Naruto was silent for a few minutes. "That's pretty heavy, sensei," he finally said. "You're saying I could be the head of a new clan?"

Anko shrugged. "It's up to you, Naruto-kun."

**A—Ж—N**

Anko was not the only competitor to spy on Gaara. Dosu Kinuta, backed by his teammates Kin and Zaku, observed the lone Suna shinobi. He looked far younger than he really was, which by all accounts was still quite young. Gaara was also rather short and harmless-looking until you saw his haunted eyes, difficult to do in the dark. He was far more intimidating when surrounded by a sandstorm.

"Why didn't he kill the green idiot like he was supposed to?" Kin murmured.

"Change of plans: Nara Shikamaru interfered," Zaku said tersely. "We have to neutralize Gaara with poison at least thirty seconds before Yakushi-san will step in, so we need to tag him at least once."

"Why isn't Kabuto-san doing this himself? He's the one who can regenerate both arms if Gaara crushes them off," Kin bit off irritably.

"He's a short-range fighter," Dosu ticked off on his fingers, "he's a coward, and he has minions. Spread out, minions."

Swearing over the radio, Zaku and Kin stole away through the alleyways surrounding the junchuuriki. Gaara sat quietly on a street corner at midnight, enveloped by the fog of misery that 'Mother' projected and the shroud of night. It was this situational unawareness that Kin Tsuchi hoped to take advantage of. That and the fact that their entire cell was long-range. Against an honest-to-god jinchuuriki they might stand a ghost of a chance, especially one so well suited to their strengths.

"On my signal," Dosu ordered. Consummate professionals, the other Oto shinobi held their positions while their leader began manipulating sound waves. Gaara probably didn't notice, even as his perception was distorted heavily by the warping of his inner ear. Zaku waited until the redhead was forced to stand up and wander drunkenly down the street before aiming both palms at him.

Gaara didn't notice the twin blasts of air at first, but his shield of sand was able to absorb the impact. He turned around, almost doubling over as his mind protested the movement. Dosu ramped up the sound attack, aiming to disorient as well as disable.

The sounds of the beginning battle had lights turning on in windows, but it would be a matter of minutes before any real help arrived. Kabuto had mud clones disabling the ANBU patrolling the area, which gave them roughly ten minutes before news of a battle in the middle of a street reached the upper echelon.

Whatever intelligence controlled Gaara's sand, it obviously relied at least partially on Gaara's senses. Kin's senbon were mostly devoured by the amorphous defence, but a fair number slipped few and simply happened to miss. Gaara was a small and moving target, after all. Zaku primed for another air blast and released them in tandem, stretching both Gaara and Shukaku to the limit.

"Why are you so eager to die?" Gaara asked savagely, sending a roiling tendril of sand at Kin.

"Orochimaru-sama needs greater control of you, bastard," Zaku replied, mostly to himself.

"Speaking of bastards, where's Yakushi-san?"

"He's not going to help us, Dosu."

By then, Gaara had realized who was messing with his coordination and set a trap. A sandy sphere the size of a marble drifted innocuously away from the fight, then swung back and snuck into the back of Dosu's sandals. With bone-crushing strength, the minute amount of sand severed both tendons and left Dosu immobile.

He lived long enough to see Gaara's chilling smile, then died at the hands of Shukaku. The Sand Burial lasted only for a second and completely obliterated any trace of the poor ninja. He didn't even have time to scream.

"Shit!" Zaku hissed. "Kin, hurry up and give him a love tap already!"

"I'm trying!" Kin retorted hysterically. Zaku's next attack gave her a small opening, but Gaara covered it without even looking. The sand was now creeping towards Zaku, though Gaara remained uncaringly immobile. Kin gauged their odds of success to be close to nil.

The neighbourhood was alive with concern now. Zaku's attack made a satisfyingly loud _thwump_ every time it hit, which Dosu had always complained was a bad attribute for a ninja. Kin found herself agreeing, though Gaara didn't care about petty things like 'arrest' or 'execution'.

"Mother wants your blood," Gaara said chillingly, and Zaku's struggles lasted only long enough for him to pulverize a nearby wall before he went the way Dosu did.

_'Screw this,'_ Kin thought. After a perfunctory check for Kabuto, she back away from Gaara and ducked quickly through the advancing line of ANBU. Gaara noted her absence, but he was no stranger to cowardice in his foes and promised Shukaku he'd kill her later if he got the chance.

**A—Ж—N**

"Should I kill you?" Kabuto said out loud. "You failed your mission, your teammates died and you ran scared from a little boy."

He chuckled. "I used to be that way. Like Gaara-kun, that is, not you. But discretion is the better part of valour, and I must say that you fought well. Your senbon aim needs work, though. Even Naruto-kun is better than you."

Kabuto shrugged. "Or maybe not. He can only do parlour tricks, and furthermore you happen to be more useful than any jinchuuriki. Very well, I'll let you live. Do not disappoint Orochimaru-sama in the future, Kin-san."

A nearby door opened and a senior citizen came out. Kabuto recognized her as the lady who'd assigned him his last sixty or so D-rank missions, the kind he completed with mud clones by the dozen. He'd probably broken some kind of record: most menial jobs done by a genin, or most dedicated double agent.

"Hello there, young man," she said. "Could you help an old woman and tell me what's afoot? I keep hearing this terrible racket!"

Kabuto's sinister expression melted away, replaced by a charming smile. "Certainly, ma'am. I heard a fight between some of those foreigners from Otogakure a few blocks away. I doubt they'll be a problem anymore..."

* * *

_My rationale for water techniques is that earth and lightning are too specialized, wind would take too long to master, and fire is something Gaara knows how to counter._

* * *

~Please review.~


	5. The Schism

**Sunlight For Leaves**

by _Aegis_

Chapter V: The Schism

* * *

Kakashi finished Sasuke's training unexpectedly early, at least to the point where he felt comfortable with his chances of fighting Shikamaru. With only a week to go before the tournament, Sasuke had improved as much as could reasonably be expected, but truthfully Kakashi wasn't worried. The Chidori was unnecessarily powerful in light of Shikamaru's limited repertoire, but Kakashi fully expected Sasuke to need it in the coming fight with Gaara.

"You're going to keep training?" he asked absently. Sasuke was standing a little behind him, searching the horizon. It was a habit of his Kakashi had noticed.

"If I stop, what right have I to call myself Uchiha?" Sasuke responded rhetorically. "My brother made chuunin at age ten on his first try. I'm twelve now. I _need_ to do this."

"A word of advice, Sasuke-kun," said Kakashi. "Being a chuunin isn't just about fighting ability. A chuunin is a potential leader, and most of them are assigned on missions with other chuunin or as a leader of genin. Think about what you want to show the judges, because in the end it's Hokage-sama and Kazekage-sama who'll decide whether you pass or fail."

"Is that so?" Sasuke mused.

"Well, consideration is given to other factors as well. Don't worry, I have full confidence that you'll become a chuunin. Who knows, maybe you'll even win the tournament!"

Kakashi's visible eye crinkled into a smile.

"Did Itachi?"

The one-eyed jonin sighed. "You have a one-track mind, Sasuke-kun. No, Itachi-san did not win the tournament. Hiruzen-sama ordered him to lose his second round, though he was promoted anyways. The kunoichi he lost to eventually went on to beat three genin from other villages and eventually won the tournament herself."

Sasuke didn't say anything to that, and Kakashi didn't press him for a response.

**A—Ж—N**

Anko appraised Naruto's battle plan. It relied heavily on Gaara's dislike of moving and Naruto's reserves of chakra. They were matched in the latter respect, but Naruto planned to use the Mizurappa no Jutsu to blast the sand out of his way if necessary, hopefully making openings for kunai.

"Why kunai?" Anko had asked. As it turned out, Naruto preferred them as a matter of principle. Sasuke preferred shuriken, never having needed a blade in close combat, and despite what Kakashi said and did Sasuke was a long-range fighter anyways. Naruto, on the other hand, liked to get in close with his opponents.

"I have a plan for diversions, too," he had explained. "Kage Bunshin with soldier pills."

He produced a generic pill bottle filled with the emergency chakra boosters. Anko didn't know the specifics of the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, but Naruto assured her that they duplicated any equipment they had on them. Because soldier pills didn't contain energy, they only increased its production, that meant they cost negligible chakra to reproduce. Then the clones could gorge on them and form a line of long-range water cannons.

"I like your style," Anko said in response.

Dealing with Shukaku was trickier, but Naruto had a plan for that too. The Tanuki demon emerged whenever Gaara fell unconscious, and killing him was never an option put on the table. Anko privately agreed that Naruto wasn't ready to kill people, but she had been ready to tell him it was the only way to win without unleashing Shukaku.

"I don't need to kill Gaara and I don't need to knock him unconscious, either. I just need him to stop fighting."

To that end, Naruto had purchased a toxin that would partially paralyze Gaara. It wasn't particularly powerful, and just flashing a Konoha hitae-ate had only gotten him a local anesthetic, but that was exactly what he needed.

"I was watching that tape of Gaara's fight with Lee," Naruto explained. "His sand is controlled directly by Shukaku, which is probably why his seal is so weak. While I was watching, I noticed that it only ever defended him. Gaara had to make hand seals to go on the offensive. He _has_ to move his arms to attack, and he can't do that if I tag him with this painkiller stuff."

Anko wondered if he had stolen the drug from a medic, because as far as she knew there were no stores selling lidocane in Konoha at all. It was used to stop heart attacks or something, but most ninja preferred the fast-acting curare or the untraceable ricin coating their weapons. Most ninja didn't have to subdue their target without killing or knocking them unconscious, so Anko decided to cut her student a break and let him get away with robbing a hospital. Nothing she hadn't done before.

"Are you sure you can get him?" she had asked.

"I have a plan for that too," Naruto had replied confidently. "I gotta say, that's the best thing you've taught me. Have a plan for everything, and you'll never lose."

**A—Ж—N**

"Let's celebrate," Anko said suddenly.

"Celebrate what?" Naruto asked. "Nothing's happened worth celebrating. For all I know, Gaara could kill me in six days. That would suck; then I'd never become Hokage and make everyone here respect me! Oh, and I guess I promised to get rid of the Hyuuga curse seal, so I can't let Gaara kill me. Still, why celebrate?"

"Why not?" Anko countered. "When you get to be as old as I am, you realize that you have to party before the battle, just in case your friends don't come back alive. Anywhere you wanna go in particular?"

"Ichiraku Ramen!" Naruto declared, getting off of Anko's couch and looking around for her phone. Anko sprang after him and tackled him to the floor.

"Noooooooo!" Anko cried. "There's no way in hell we're eating at a fast-food restaurant. Trust me, last time that happened I swear I put on five pounds. If your best idea is some ramen place, I'll just order food. Call your friends, Pinkie and the Uchiha and whoever."

Naruto grumbled about Anko's disregard for the amazing deliciousness of Teuchi's signature product, and no friends were called to the party. Anko spent a few minutes on the phone with Ayame ordering takeout to her apartment. Naruto shouted a mind-boggling number of pork ramen, which Anko amended to ten while relaying it to Ayame, then ordered three for herself.

Naruto spent the wait wandering around Anko's home. It was in a corner of the building, and like all high-ranking ninja Anko had a substantial amount of wealth to her name. A massive skylight illuminated the living room with the red hue of the sunset, and a kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and antechamber circled the room like satellites. In all, it was about three times the size of Naruto's dingy apartment and orders of magnitude more lavish.

Anko hung up and disappeared into her kitchen, where she kept her food in the refrigerator and her instruments of torture under the counter. It was neither that she retrieved this time, instead bringing out a bottle of clear liquid and uncorking it.

"That's the stuff," she moaned, downing a small glass of the obviously alcoholic drink. "So, what do you wanna do while we wait for dinner? I have board games, karaoke and a widescreen television."

"Uh...you have a television? Isn't that a little expensive?"

Anko struggled to contain the twitch that sprang up in her left eye. "I'm going to pretend you didn't just say that, and then I'm going to ask what movie you want to watch. Either that or you get to listen to me sing. Trust me, after a few more drinks you'll be begging for me to stop."

"You pick," Naruto said lethargically. "I sound like Shikamaru, don't I?"

"You've earned it," Anko offered generously. "Mmm, let's see. I have a few kaiju flicks and the complete Fujikaze Yukie collection. Wow, I thought I had more."

Naruto wandered over, frowning. "You do. See, that one on the end? 'Tsunade: The Legendary Sucker'?"

Anko checked the title Naruto had referenced and turned beet red. "We're...not going to watch that one. It has, um, stuff in it that's a bit mature for a twelve-year-old."

"I'm fourteen, and why can't I watch a movie about Tsunade-hime?"

His interest in the Slug Princess was mostly related to her summons, but Tsunade herself was an enigmatic figure. After the conclusion of the Third Shinobi World War, she and another medic left Konoha with the Sandaime's permission. Konoha's battlefield medic ninja now lagged behind Iwa's, which was much more organized and better staffed. An equally talented medic from Kiri was rumoured to be whipping his own division into shape.

"She's not actually in the film," Anko explained hesitantly. She _really_ did not want to be the one to give Naruto The Talk, especially not over a movie poking fun at Tsunade's nickname in a sexual way. That was Iruka's job. Fortunately the case was on its side and only showed the title. The picture on the front pretty much explained it all.

"But– Hey, where did it go?"

Anko whistled, completely not holding the pornography behind her back until she had a chance to burn it for daring to reveal itself to her student.

Wait a minute.

"Fourteen?" she exclaimed. "Christ, when did you start at the Academy? You're pretty damn short, you know that?"

"I failed the graduation exam twice," Naruto said bitterly. "By the time I graduated, Sakura-chan and Sasuke both caught up. And I haven't hit my growth spurt yet, okay?! Some day I'll be taller than both of them!"

"Right," Anko snorted. "We'll see– Oh. You're fourteen."

"Yeah, so?"

"That makes you legal. Care for a drink?"

**A—Ж—N**

Feeling more dejected than ever, Jiraiya finally returned to Konoha. A crisis had arisen in the northeast, but his spies were happy to inform him that Kumo had it well in hand. One of them turned out to be on Orochimaru's payroll, so he spent an additional week straightening it all out.

Predictably, ANBU summoned him to Sarutobi's office the instant he set foot in the village, which was annoying even though he had planned to do that anyways. Clearly he was no longer in Hiruzen's good graces.

"Explain," was the first thing the Hokage said.

"There was an emergency," Jiraiya said, equally serious. "Konoha's spies were compromised by Orochimaru. I spent a while cleaning house."

"Could it have waited?"

"No."

The temperature in the room was dropping rapidly. "Jiraiya, I told you to give Naruto the Toad Summoning contract. Imagine my surprise when I am informed that he now has a different contract. Given his recent association with a private instructor it may be that he has somehow done it on his own, but perhaps you've managed to pleasantly surprise me."

"I told you," Jiraiya said wearily, "giving apprentices contracts is bad conduct. Sure, some groups like the Seven Swordsmen have traditions and such, but the only way to work effectively with a summon is to use the Kuchiyose no Jutsu yourself."

"This isn't about Naruto's _effectiveness_, it's about village morale," Sarutobi growled. "It'll boost people's confidence with another Toad Summoner in the village."

"Hey, giving Minato-kun the contract was stretching my standards already, and it was a minor miracle the toads accepted him," Jiraiya growled. "Naruto needs to have his own summons. I'm just concerned that I can't find him anywhere. He never showed up in his apartment, and somehow none of the people he usually spends time with have seen him. Kakashi, Book-chan, Ebisu-san and Konohamaru... I even staked out that ramen place for ten hours before they shoed me out. If Naruto doesn't want to be found, then clearly he won't."

"You call yourself a ninja?" Sarutobi shot back. "If you'd retained even the faintest spark of initiative I hammered into your silly head you would have checked the mission boards. He's been training with Mitarashi Anko-san for the chuunin selection exams."

"That's unfortunate," Kakashi remarked tonelessly. Both Sarutobi and Jiraiya jumped, peeved that the younger jonin had somehow entered the room without alerting either of them.

"Kakashi, how is Uchiha Sasuke progressing?" asked the Hokage, quickly overcoming his shock.

"He'll do fine," Kakashi said blandly. "We were quite fortunate that Orochimaru's curse seal failed to take hold in his chakra system. Assuming you want to know about my other students, Sakura-chan is currently two inches deep in a book on genjutsu theory, and I have yet to see what Ebisu-san has trained Naruto in. Before he was dumped on Anko, obviously."

"About that..."

**A—Ж—N**

Kakashi and Jiraiya converged hastily on Anko's flat, neither speaking as they flitted through the evening air. As they arrived, it quickly became clear that some sort of party was going on: both of them recognized Anko's terrible singing wafting through the streets. The drunken slur did not bode well...for her.

Finally, just as the two men were about to storm in and ensure she hadn't violate poor Naruto, the boy in question shouted something amazingly vile and threw a vase at her. Despite being moderately hammered, Anko managed to stop it from hitting the floor. Kakashi looked at Jiraiya, who shrugged.

'Wait,' he mouthed.

"The fuck kid?" Anko yelled.

"I get it, you suck at karaoke. Let's just watch Princess Fuun kick arse with the magical rainbow chakra, or whatever the hell it was."

"'S th'best movie ever!" Anko shouted back. "I fuckin' cried when Mao got his face melted off! And you can sod off, 'cause we're not...we're not watchin' porn. Hiruzen-sama would chew me up like a toothpick."

"I _knew_ it!" Naruto cried angrily. "There's no way Tsunade-hime would– would she?"

"...Dunno, actually."

"Can I have more sake?"

"You're not vomiting on my floor again, brat," Anko warned. "You barely had any...lightweight..."

Jiraiya was shaking with silent laughter. Kakashi gave him a look that chilled him to the bone and opened the door. Inside, Naruto was throttling Anko for all he was worth, while Anko easily kept his hands off her throat while complaining how heavy he was.

"May I assume that you've been more productive than this in the past?" he asked blandly. There was dead silence as both Naruto and Anko slowly turned to face him.

"I didn't actually show it to him, honest," Anko said weakly.

**A—Ж—N**

"When I told the two of you to train with Ebisu-san, that was an order from your sensei," Kakashi said angrily. "Do you think orders are optional?"

Sakura and Naruto shivered. They'd never seen their sensei so enraged before – mildly annoyed, especially when Haku escaped, but never quite as furious as he seemed now. His killing intent was starting to break through the thick façade he built around his emotions, making the three genin shiver.

"Kakashi-sensei—"

"Don't call me that," Kakashi cut him off. "Obviously you don't value my input and my advice as your sensei, so for now we're just colleagues."

"Kakashi-_senpai_," Sakura said carefully, "why are you here so early? You said it would be a month before Sasuke-kun finished preparing for his fight with Neji-san and Shikamaru-san."

"It seems the lessons I've taught haven't been learned," Kakashi said frigidly. "Teamwork requires elements to succeed, none of which you've demonstrated. I came back because Sasuke has improved to the point that sparring matches with opponents of his own skill level will do him good.

"You seem to forget that I am paid to shape you into shinobi. It reflects badly on me when you have no respect or trust," he hissed. "Frankly, I'm disappointed in both of you. There's only one way to redeem yourselves now."

Kakashi threw a pair of bells to the unprepared Sasuke. He caught them nevertheless and stuffed them in his belt.

"You have thirty minutes to get the bells," Kakashi said ominously. "If you haven't learned teamwork from me yet, then you never will."

Sasuke backed nervously into the forest as his two teammates rounded on him. Naruto smiled evilly and quickly removed his leg weights. Without them, it felt like gravity had suddenly lost its hold on him. He bounded after Sasuke, leaving Sakura in their dust, and was promptly beaten to the ground by Sasuke.

The Uchiha had a month of speed training from Kakashi, while Naruto had spent his time improving his form by sparring Maito Gai. The difference bwteen the two of them was incredible: Naruto moved like a tank, shrugging off painful blows and remaining low and grounded, while Sasuke flipped and twisted like an acrobat, twice as fast as Naruto and with far more vicious punches.

Kakashi shot Sakura a baleful glance, and the Haruno reluctantly joined the fight as Naruto's backup.

"Magen: Jubaku Satsu," she muttered, and Sakura's form vanished into mist. Perhaps Sasuke would have paid more mind if he'd seen, but Naruto had just landed a glancing shot against his chest. For the purposes of sparring, bare handed strikes to the chest were considered blocked by the flak jacket, but Naruto had actually come close to winding him. Sasuke stumbled back, and was promptly swallowed by tree roots.

Their sensei wondered where Sakura was learning B-rank genjutsu, but Sasuke had already dealt with it. The knowledge that the roots were fake was enough to resist their immobilizing effect, and before Naruto could capitalize he had activated his sharingan. Sasuke pivoted and lashed out with a kick that Sakura was forced to duck under, but then Sasuke was beset on both sides, Naruto high and Sakura low.

Given his superior eyesight and lightning-fast reflexes, Sasuke didn't bother maneuvering out from between them. Instead, he feinted towards Naruto and doubled back behind Sakura. Her eyes widened as Sasuke reappeared at her back and put her into a headlock. Sakura flailed wildly as Sasuke attempted to choke her into unconsciousness, but his grip kept her relatively short arms away from the important bits. Naruto circled warily, not afriad of hitting Sakura but worried that action would give Sasuke an opening.

At last, Sakura pulled her hands together and slapped together a genjutsu that made Sasuke feel like he had suddenly accelerated to hundreds of miles an hour. Startled, he dropped her and Sakura dashed away like a frightened rabbit.

Sasuke adapted his genjutsu defence to include auditory and tactile sensation, trusting his sharingan. Together, Sakura and Naruto rushed him and drove Sasuke back at a ferocious rate. Sakura abandoned genjutsu entirely and moved just behind Naruto with a brace of shuriken. As Sasuke was forced to creatively evade Naruto's crushing blows, Sakura threw threw first volley of steel ninja stars. One lodged itself in the leather of Sasuke's sandals as he tried to kick the weapon out of the air, and he winced as he landed on that foot. Sensing his distraction, Naruto's roundhouse kick launched Sasuke bodily into the air.

With uncanny agility, Sasuke landed on one foot and pulled the shuriken out of the other shoe. He set his stance, formed three hand seals and puffed up his cheeks.

"Katon: Gokakyuu no Jutsu!" he grunted.

"Suiton: Mizurappa no Jutsu!" Naruto snarled. An equally large stream of water met the roiling flame halfway between them and both stopped dead. Further into the fireball the water evaporated far too quickly, but the water also provided a barrier that the fire couldn't penetrate. For some time, Uchiha and Uzumaki stared each other down over their respective jutsu.

Sasuke faltered first. Producing heat from chakra was less intensive than creating matter from energy, but his control was stretched by maintaining the temperature and size. As the fireball flickered and faded out, Naruto's powerful blast of water caught him full-force and pushed him back until he managed to swerve to the side. Naruto ended the stream of water and approached Sasuke slowly, rubbing his hands.

"I finally beat you," he said in satisfaction. "Honestly, I thought it would take longer than this. The great Uchiha Sasuke—"

Sasuke met his gaze, and the sharingan yawned wide and swallowed him whole. Naruto started shaking, ostensibly from fear even though he wasn't especially afraid. Sasuke stood up, looking the worse for wear but with plenty of fight left in him. As long as he looked Naruto in the eyes, the other couldn't so much as flinch. Both sharingan had two tomoe.

Naturally, neglecting Sakura had consequences. The kunoichi was slower than both of them, but Sasuke was too occupied with holding Naruto still with the strength of his genjutsu to react in time. She sprinted up to Sasuke, wrapped one arm around his neck and held the tip of a kunai to his throat.

"Look away," she instructed. Sasuke reluctantly ended the genjutsu, keenly aware of the rivulets of blood running down his collar. Naruto reached out and extracted the bells, smiling impishly.

"Teamwork is great, ain't it?" he said happily.

Sakura held her hand out for a bell, and Naruto's smile vanished. Not one of them moved so much as a muscle: Naruto with both bells, Sakura waiting for him to end the exercise, and Sasuke held at knifepoint.

"Well?" said Kakashi. "Give her one and we'll move on with your training. There are some kinks in your taijutsu that need to be worked out before your Goken will be of any use."

Naruto looked at Sakura for a long while, then turned to Kakashi. "No."

Kakashi cocked his head to the side. "I beg your pardon?"

"You were right, I _don't_ value your advice as my sensei. You're barely my sensei at all!" Naruto yelled. "It's your job to train us, but the minute Sasuke asks for private training you abandon us FOR THREE WEEKS! That's not just favouritism, that's irresponsible. I have to fight _Gaara of the Sand_, and your response was 'you can't do it'."

"My decisions are not for you to question," Kakashi said icily. Sasuke hadn't actually asked for private training, but given the thinness of the ice Naruto was on it didn't matter. "Had you bothered to find Ebisu, he would have begun your ninjutsu training. I know for a fact that he has a grounding in every discipline except for nintaijutsu, but you chose to spend a small fortune on Anko instead. If that's your choice I don't have the authority to say no, but I chose to train Sasuke because he has the best chance of becoming chuunin out of all of you. Honestly, he was the only one ready for the responsibility at the beginning of the exam. Come back with a few more years under your belt."

"So that makes it okay to just abandon us?" Naruto shot back flippantly. "We don't just disappear when you turn your back."

Sakura growled in frustration, letting go of Sasuke and snatching a bell from Naruto while he raged at Kakashi. Naruto stared at her in unwarranted disbelief, like he couldn't believe she had the guts to take something from him.

"That's it," he said simply. Naruto turned around and walked away.

"Where do you think you're going, Naruto?" Kakashi called.

Naruto looked over his shoulder. "I'm going to train until I can't move a muscle, and then I'm going to beat Gaara. I'm going to win the whole damn tournament, and then I'm going to get off this team and _away from all of you_!"

Sakura, Sasuke and Kakashi watched him leave sadly. Sakura wondered what had made Naruto so hostile to her, Sasuke wondered how he'd improved so quickly, and Kakashi wondered whether Naruto would survive the fight with Gaara. He'd grown rather fond of the boy, and perhaps hoping he would simply see reason and surrender was too unlikely.

* * *

_ What is this thing you call 'bashing'? I'm just calling it like I see it._

* * *

~Please review.~


	6. The Refusal

**Sunlight For Leaves**

by _Aegis_

Chapter VI: The Refusal

* * *

Call him a pervert, but Jiraiya wasn't named one of the legendary sannin for his lack of basic deductive skills. Now that he had a vague notion of how Naruto spent his time and why, it was reasonable to assume that he'd gone back to Anko after the fiasco with the rest of Team Seven. Jiraiya used Shunshin to take up a comfortable position at Anko's dinner table, and began sketching his unwitting hostess without her shirt on when Naruto stormed in.

"You! What the hell do you want?" he shouted, abruptly backing out the front door. Jiraiya snapped his fingers, and an invisible force kicked Naruto onto his face and slammed the door shut behind him. The toad sage tried very hard not to laugh.

"How'd ya do that?" Naruto grumbled, standing up and pretending it hadn't happened.

Jiraiya shrugged. "When you're a jonin, you'll find out. Anyways, I'm here because I want to talk to you."

"You're Jiraiya, right?" Naruto asked. "How come you pick now to just show up and offer me something?"

Jiraiya wondered what he was supposed to tell the kid. His initial plan to offer Naruto the chance to apprentice under him was shot to pieces, but his official reason for interest in Naruto was still valid: training in controlling the Kyuubi. He said as much, and watched as Naruto turned an interesting shade of purple.

"All my life, people turn around and walk away when they see me, and I used to wonder why they hated me. _AT LEAST THEY HAD A GOOD REASON!_ Where were you for the last fourteen years when the entire village was worried I would snap and kill them? You could have helped me! You could have told them! You could have sealed the Kyuubi in a fucking cooking utensil like Shukaku and not a human being, but you _did_! Why me, anyways? Was there nothing convenient for the Yondaime on hand to seal the Nine-Tails into other than a fucking human baby? The fucking day I was born?! I must have the worst karma in the world! Who was I in my last life to deserve this? The Sandaime Mizukage? The Yondaime Hokage, for sealing a demon into a orphan? Wouldn't that be ironic..."_  
_

Jiraiya sucked in a deep breath. He hadn't expected Naruto to be this..._jaded_, and now he had to live with the consequences. He suspected that now would be a bad time to mention that he was technically his godfather, who had been absent for the past ten years because of his position as head of Konoha's spy network.

_'What else can I possibly say?'_ he wondered frantically. _'Why am I even thinking about this? Naruto-kun should be jumping at the chance to learn from me!'_

"Before he died," Jiraiya began apprehensively, "the Yondaime started work on a jutsu powerful enough to incapacitate or kill without using hand seals. It used some principles I didn't entirely understand, but I gather that it's based off of a natural phenomenon. Anyways, the late Hokage-sama wanted to infuse this jutsu with elemental chakra, but the Kyuubi's attack interrupted his work.

"I learned this particular jutsu from him in the hopes that I could finish it. That is, as it's quite powerful already, it needs elemental chakra befor it'll hit with anything more than kinetic momentum. If you want, I could teach—"

"Piss off!" Naruto shouted. "Seriously, have you no shame? I told you, I already have a teacher! But what's worse is that you're just offering it to me. _Nobody_ just offers me things. Kakashi-_senpai_ had the Bell Test, my summons tested me, and Anko-sensei is taking my money. What do you want?"

He ignored the traitorous voice in his head that insisted Senshi had been overjoyed to have another summoner, in his lifeless fashion.

Jiraiya drooped. "Sarutobi-sama has also expressed…concerns about your choice of tutor. Mitarashi Anko-san has a history of—"

-SLAM-

The toad sage watched the door shut sadly, Naruto's chakra signature bristling angrily as it moved down the hallway. Hiruzen's order to go behind Anko's back was one of the more unfortunate betrayals, but Jiraiya was only now realizing the extent of what he'd done. If this created too deep of a divide between the Hokage and Naruto, the Village Hidden in Leaves could face the wrath of a boy with no control over his demon.

Jiraiya shivered. Konoha wouldn't survive a repeat of that infamous October.

**A—Ж—N**

Somehow, Anko knew where Naruto would be. She returned from having her hair trimmed back to a uniform length before spiting her hairdresser with obscene amounts of gel, and the path across Konoha went past the northernmost face of the village. Dominated by the imposing height of the Hokage Monument, this was an area frequented primarily by shinobi, and was home to nearly all of their facilities: gyms, stores, training grounds, obstacle courses, and of course the Academy. To the west stood the Hyuuga clan's massive homestead, and to the east was the rotting remains of Uchiha Itachi's mad handiwork. The area had its own share of secrets: a pond hidden within a grove of trees, a ferret who made his home there and spent hours amusing children and tormenting Tora, and one of the workers at a pavilion was a spy from Kumogakure. The least secret, and least impressive, was the playground.

Small and made of Iwa metal, the sparse playground was originally there to allow shinobi to distract their children by integrating them with civilians. Years of being subjected to the Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu had reduced it to half of its original height. Senju Tobirama deemed it too dangerous for children, but in his youth one of Uchiha Obito's many escapades involved painting it again. Still to dangerous for anyone but the most foolhardy, most ignored it. Of course, that meant that it was second only to the many nooks and crannies within the Hokage Monument itself for hiding in.

Anko came to an earth-shattering halt in front of Naruto, who was swinging desolately underneath a twisted metal arm. He looked up at her, his expression curiously blank, and Anko was reminded of the time Sho's parents kicked him out of the house. Orochimaru had allowed Sho to stay in his own home, but for weeks afterward the man was uncommunicative and replied in clipped tones.

"Anko-sensei," Naruto said softly. "Does Hokage-sama not like you?"

Ah. So that's what this was about. Anko plunked down in the swing next to Naruto, ignoring the way her knees were forced up to her chest.

"My jonin-sensei was Orochimaru," she said blandly. Naruto abruptly stopped swinging, and she gave him some time to process what she'd said.

"All of the sannin, bastards that they are, only took one genin team. Orochimaru marched into the Academy on graduation day one year and picked the three most promising shinobi for his team. Uchiha Shisui, Namikaze Sho and myself; we were each considered talented. Shisui had an instinctive mastery of the Shunshin no Jutsu and his family's dojutsu, Sho knew a rare form of fuuinjutsu, and I'm just fabulous."

Naruto snorted.

"Anyhow, Orochimaru gave us the Senbon Test and we all passed, just like he knew we would. We spent two years training on the southern peninsula, and when we were done Orochimaru brought us home and entered us in the chuunin exams. Kinda like you, only a year and a half later. I actually won that tournament, believe it or not. I beat four other ninja and afterwards I made chuunin, but Shisui didn't. I think Orochimaru was more disappointed in him than anything, because we really never saw each other after that.

"Sho moved in with Orochimaru a year later. I never really liked the guy, he was too hung up on being second best to his cousin, but a month after that Sho just kind of left our team and never looked back. Then it was just me and Orochimaru-sensei, and boy did we have some fun times."

"It sounds like it was a blast," Naruto quipped dryly.

"Oh, it was," Anko assured him bitterly. "Orochimaru gave me the best assignments, the best training and the best salary. I was his personal protégé, and he made sure the village knew it. Sho made jonin a few years later, and that was the last I saw of him. Shisui is dead, but for a while he was a hero. After the Yondaime Hokage died, he was the fastest man in the world. But as I was saying, I was alone. I didn't even have parents."

"You're an orphan?" Naruto asked curiously.

"Yup!" said Anko. "I even got to pick my own name. Mitarashi is my favourite flavour."

Naruto shook his head, momentary humour overwhelming his bad mood.

"For a while, Orochimaru was my world, right? So a few weeks after Minato-sama dies, he takes me into the back room of his house. He says that there's this jutsu he's trying out that lets him share his power with other people, and would I like to try it? Next thing I know, I'm in the cells at Torture and Interrogation and dear old sensei's on the run from the law."

"What about Sho?" asked Naruto.

Anko looked thoughtfully at the tree branches above them. "I think he was innocent, but a lot of people didn't feel that way. It's because of his family's influence is that he wasn't executed. Thing is, Orochimaru made a whole bunch of these curse seals. Some of them tapped into natural energy, some of them worked like the Eight Gates, but he only ever managed to use the Cursed Seal of Heaven once. On me."

She tugged down the collar of her coat and brushed the edge of her metal shirt away from the triple tomoe tattoed on her skin. Naruto leaned in and observed Orochimaru's achievement with something that was either awe or disgust.

"So this is what he tried to hit Sasuke-teme with," he murmured hatefully.

"It probably didn't take on your teammate, but yeah," Anko agreed. "After that, well, Konoha just about lost its shit. Sarutobi was looking for a new Hokage, Jiraiya had gone AWOL, and Tsunade-hime was a nervous wreck. Orochimaru was the last straw, and even after my psyche evaluation came up clean most of them blamed me."

"How did you...you know...?" Naruto asked awkwardly.

"There's power in this seal, but only if I give in to it," Anko explained tiredly. "See, when people hate you because of power, _using_ that power is the wrong answer. Konoha doesn't hate me any more than it hates you. They fear us. I'm the mad scientist's experiment, you're the only thing between them and a fiery death beneath the Nine-Tails' paws. Here's the thing: a few years ago, I was on a team with Aburame Shibi that killed one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist. Before that, I rescued a few dozen civilians from a hostage situation. As long as you just leave the Kyuubi where it is, they'll come around for you too. You and your adorably puffy hair will be carved into that monument some day."

"You really think so?"

Tears were streaming down Naruto's face. For those few minutes, his disappointment in Sakura, Kakashi, Jiraiya and Sarutobi were meaningless, because Anko believed in him.

So if the next few minutes were spent hugging her fiercely, you wouldn't blame him. And if Anko cried too, you wouldn't blame her either.

**A—Ж—N**

Orochimaru was a busy man. Planning an incursion took time, and now too many of the elements involved were drifting outside his control. The Suna army was becoming restless, Gaara was more and more difficult to hold down every day, and now two Otogkure genin were dead.

This last one was a little more disturbing than the others, primarily because they ought to have beaten Gaara soundly. Kabuto, however, reported a crushing defeat on all fronts. His subordinate had opted to remain out of the fight, ostensibly for his own protection. As long as the casualties were limited to one group, the whole incident could be blamed on Gaara's occasional fights of homicidal rage. Orochimaru had experienced enough of those to know the signs.

His only surviving genin, Kin Tsuchi, was nowhere to be found. A tracking team consisting of two recruited civilian bounty hunters and a defected Inuzuka were on her tail, but Tsuchi had likely crossed the southern border into the Land of Water. Orochimaru doubted he'd see her again, but if he did...there was price for betrayal.

In light of his loss of control over Gaara, Orochimaru stewed privately for a few days. His White Secret technique sustained his body without food or water, leaving him free of distractions to ponder the matter of dealing with Konoha anew. Tactics would have to be changed, deals altered and plans canceled.

There was, however, a strategy he was partial to. A favourite of Sarutobi's during the Second and Third Ninja World War: when you lack strength, a suitable show of force will work as well. The idea burrowed into his mind, becoming more and more workable until Orochimaru was doubled over in laughter as an alternate invasion plan popped up in his mind.

As the snake sage took stock of his remaining forces, he summoned the Sound Five. Their training had one more hurdle in the final hours before the invasion.

**A—Ж—N**

"Hey, where are you going?" Tenten asked planitively. Sakura looked back at her and shrugged, not entirely sure where she was going either.

"I guess I'll find out when I get there," she said. "Is Lee-san here yet?"

Tenten shook her head. Gai and Kakashi were with the other jonin-sensei; Neji, Naruto and Sasuke were all competitors; and Lee wasn't done his sensei's challenge to do one hundred laps around the village carrying a civilian. Sakura suspected that Naruto had been doing that earlier, only to leave early for the tournament.

Tenten pressed a kiss to her cheek, and Sakure left for her mystifying destination with a blush colouring her face. Preoccupied by her girlfriend, Sakura walked aimlessly down the back corridors of the arena, noting that they followed a predictable pattern to accommodate the bleachers above, storage rooms, a medical facility near the arena floor, and evenly spaced places for competitors to get ready and receive last-minute pep talks from their sensei.

Sakura knew she was on the right track when she passed Sarutobi Asuma coming out of one of the changing rooms. He looked haggard, his cigarette's end chewed into an unrecognizable pulp. They paid each other no notice as they passed, but Sakura turned down the way he'd came and quickly located what she was looking for.

Ino was shrugging off her leg weights as Sakura arrived, replacing them with purple leg warmers that matched the rest of her outfit. Ino trained with light weights, which in ninja terms was about fifteen pounds. Unusually, she also wore a heavy metal jacket, which was shucked and exchanged for a tan vest made of chakra-resistant material. In theory, the stuff could protect her from non-lethal Juuken strikes, but in practice all Neji had to do was pour on more chakra and hope he didn't kill her.

"Hey, Ino-pig," Sakura said quietly. "Are you ready for your fight?"

"About as ready as I can be, Forehead Girl," Ino said without looking up. "There's no way I'm going to win, so Asuma-sensei says my best chance is to prove that I'm ready to be a chuunin by not losing horribly to Neji-san."

"Are you going to try and use your Shintenshin?" Sakura asked. It was Ino's most powerful jutsu, but it was a double-edged sword. It concentrated chakra to the eyes and allowed them to forcefully eject the user's soul, which followed a straight trajectory until it reached another mammal, bird or reptile. Then, Ino's Yamanaka training would allow her to overwhelm the other soul and take control. If it missed the intended target, however, Ino would simply collapse foolishly, and that would be that.

"No," Ino sighed. "I'd need Neji to hold still for that, and that's bloody unlikely as it is. I just have to make myself look competent, that's all."

She said it like the mantra of a man about to be executed. 'Be brave, it won't hurt.' Sakura stifled a giggle. Laughing at her friend's oncoming doom wouldn't necessarily endear her to Ino. She wondered when she had started to consider Ino a friend again.

"Listen, I wanted to talk about this earlier, but now seems like a good a time as any," she said casually.

"Oh?"

Ino was strapping her belt to her waist, which had three kunai in holsters on the left and a shuriken pouch on the right. Two bracers of the same chakra-resistant metal were belted over her forearms, to better protect against Neji's palm strikes. She looked like an Olympian warrior with no pupils and a ragged ponytail.

"The thing is, about Sasuke...I don't want him anymore."

Ino finally looked up. "Say what?"

"I don't want Sasuke anymore. I don't even like him anymore. Maybe that's what being on his team has done to me," Sakura mused. The truth would stay hidden for now. "I just wanted to say that he's all yours, and maybe we can really be friends again. Oh, and I wanted to apologize for the hundredth time for hitting you with that shuriken."

Ino enveloped Sakura in a hug. "It's fine," she said cheerily, oblivious to Sakura's mild discomfort at the physical contact. "And don't worry, I'll take good care of Sasuke-kun for you."

* * *

~Please Review.~


	7. The Euphoric Victory

**Sunlight For Leaves**

by _Aegis_

Chapter VII: The Euphoric Victory

* * *

"The first match in the bi-annual chuunin selection exam will be between two contenders from Konoha: Hyuuga Neji of the Hyuuga clan and Yamanaka Ino of the Yamanaka clan!"

In front of nearly a thousand people, Neji and Ino took their positions at the opposite sides of the ring. They bowed and listened to the proctor, Hayate Gekko, explain the rules and politely ask them not to kill each other.

Sakura chewed her fingernails nervously as the two ninja squared off. Ino waited for Hayate to call the start of the match before skipping back and covering her retreat with shuriken. Neji brushed them off contemptuously and zigzagged forward with feline grace. For the first time, Sakura was truly grateful that Naruto wouldn't have to face Neji. He had no chance at all against him.

"This will be easier if you simply surrender," Neji offered. Ino responded by stopping abruptly and stabbing out with a kunai. Neji whirled around the strike, pulling her in and tapping her bicep. Ino's left arm went dead. Grunting, she staggered away from him. Neji was surprisingly obliging, allowing Ino to limp to a safe distance and inspect her wounds.

"My byakugan discerns all," the Hyuuga said in a dull tone. "You are still suffering from the wound inflicted by Sakura-san in your previous fight. It has healed well, but movement may disrupt the tissue. Furthermore, your skills have deteriorated after your stay in the hospital. Please, make this easier on us both and surrender."

He was right. Not about her taijutsu, which was as good as it had always been, but about the ragged scar on her stomach. Ino's Shintenshin gave her the power to force Sakura to surrender, but not before an already-thrown shuriken vanished into her belly. It was only after Sakura was marched off the field and Ino returned to her original body did she notice at all. Blinding pain lasted for only a few seconds before her flesh went cold, and that was the last she remembered. Two medics had roughly stitched the gash closed before a third spent ten minutes with the Shosen Jutsu to make the flesh heal.

Juuken would royally screw that healing up, and Neji knew it. Stalling for time, Ino shifted sideways and devoted her energy to freeing up her arm and restoring movement. Neji probably recognized it for what it was, but he was already secure in his victory.

"I'll never surrender!" Ino said suddenly. Neji blinked.

"Then don't," he said simply. Ino sagged, her hopes for launching into a dramatic monologue that would let her set up a clever ambush vanishing. That was more of Naruto's deal.

_'Just impress them and you'll be fine.'_

Neji walked toward her (walked! Like he couldn't have finished her quickly!) and she stepped back, resisting the urge to cast a glance over her shoulder. The wall was back there, but she could almost feel sensation returning to her numb arm. Once it was hers again, she would...what could she do? Neji wasn't even exuding killing intent and she was already feeling dread as images of him eviscerating her washed into her mind.

Neji lashed out and hit her in the upper chest. The head. The thigh. Hands, elbows, cheeks, neck, ribs. Each time, a cry of pain was wrenched from her lips, and Neji's facial expression never changed as he systematically disabled her entire upper body. She could _feel_ the pressure of his presence next to her, even as his fingertips brought numbness across her entire body. Eventually, there was only one limb she could move at all: her right leg.

_'Just impress them and you'll be fine.'_

Ino hauled off and kneed Neji in the groin. Fortunately for him there was no permanent damage, but his entire being came to a screeching halt. The downside to coolly disabling the Yamanaka was that he had yet to prepare himself for a real fight. As such, there was little to no adrenaline flowing through his veins, and there was little difference between what had just happened and being kicked in the groin by a passing stranger on the street.

The entire crowd gasped, and Ino smirked triumphantly despite her current lack of balance. Neji stumbled away from his tottering opponent, his hand clasped protectively over his family jewels while hundreds of people tittered at his misfortune. Sadly, Ino's last gambit to demonstrate her fortitude had backfired spectacularly: the pain made Neji reassess the threat she posed.

Without warning, the Hyuuga lunged forward and jabbed a stiffened finger into Ino's scar. Two things happened at once, then, the first being that Ino's scar reopened spectacularly beneath her metal armour, so much so that her attending medic would later liken it to a maw. The second... It would be less accurate to say she coughed than to say she exploded with blood from her mouth and nostrils. Ino's front was quickly plastered with a dark red stream, Neji's last spiteful strike rupturing something critical in her gut. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and Ino hit the ground.

Hayate called the match.

**A—Ж—N**

Anko had somehow snuck in with the rest of the jonin-sensei to watch the match. Of all the reaction to Neji's injury, hers was the most abrasive. The braying laughter shocked Kakashi, Kurenai and Asuma into silence, while Gai only regarded Neji critically as the pale-eyed boy recovered the dignity to walk off the field without limping. Neji had won, but in the hearts of the audience Ino had struck a crucial blow for kunoichi worldwide.

"Heh, did you see the way his stupid white eyes went all wide, like 'How can this be, I am a Hyuuga!'" Anko chortled.

"Anko-san," Kurenai said nervously, "perhaps you—"

"Your sensei would approve of your attitude," Gai said frostily. This was the most venom any of them had ever seen from the taijutsu master, and Anko was caught off guard by the vehemence behind his words. Ordinarily she nursed a quiet hatred for people who needled her with Orochimaru's name, but Gai was...Gai. He wasn't facing her, but he still sounded quietly furious. Anko decided to let well enough alone, and the other three breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Further up, Sarutobi Hiruzen decided that he would let Neji's arrogance slide. It was born of an honest desire to save Ino pain, rather than lord his superiority over her, and he wouldn't have reacted any differently had she done the same to him. Not that he would have let her; Sarutobi was far too powerful to allow a genin to hit him, but it was still painful for the both of them.

"She's not bad," the Kazekage offered. "A bit cocky, doesn't know any combat-oriented jutsu, but that's all to be expected from a genin. Isn't Neji-kun the prodigy of the Hyuuga clan anyways?"

"She's ill-prepared, Kazekage-dono," Sarutobi muttered. "Neji's overconfidence stemmed from the wish to spare her the pain of the Juuken."

"Good for her, I say," the Kazekage's bodyguard remarked loudly. Neither of them paid her any mind.

**A—Ж—N**

Hayate cursed his pneumonia, moreso than usual. He'd have to scream louder than usual to be heard over the baying of the crowd. It was with the most anticipated fighter of the tournament in the wings that he had the odious job of shouting the dark horse's name over the noise.

"The second match will also take place between two young shinobi of Konoha: Uchiha Sasuke—"

There was a full minute of wild applause.

"—and Nara Shikamaru," Hayate finished sullenly, not even bothering to make himself heard. Together, Nara and Uchiha approached each other in the ring.

"I don't suppose you'll surrender now, will you?" Shikamaru muttered. Everything about him screamed tired, from his vacant stare to his slouch. Sasuke was charged with intent, though he didn't honour Shikamaru's request with an answer. They bowed, Sasuke formally and Shikamaru shallowly, and Hayate gained distance.

"Begin!" he shouted.

Sasuke levelled a glare at Shikamaru, his sharingan blazing with demonic fury. Shikamaru averted his gaze, wary of being trapped in a genjutsu he wouldn't recognize. Without moving his eyes, Sasuke observed the length of Shikamaru's shadow, the shadows elsewhere in the arena, and the rate of the rising sun. Shikamaru didn't have enough foreknowledge to create a plan, so he made a probing assault.

"Kagemane no Jutsu," he said. The shadow spread to the west snapped to a spear shape and rocketed towards Sasuke. The other boy retreated so fast he left a cloud of dust in his wake, and when it settled the tip of the shadow was only a few feet away. Sasuke memorized its width and length, calculating the total surface area and how thin Shikamaru could spread his shadow.

"I don't suppose you'd mind walking forward a bit?" Shikamaru drawled. A few nervous laughs echoed from the audience.

"Will you cease mocking me?" Sasuke growled. Tiger-Monkey-Boar-Horse-Tiger.

"Katon: Gokakyuu no Jutsu!"

_'Crap,'_ thought Shikamaru. The light from Sasuke's fireball dispelled all shadows, but moreover it forced him to move from his comfortable defensible position. Already it felt like he was standing next to a warm bonfire, and soon he'd be cooking in his skin. Maintaining enough distance from the ethereal flames was hard, but Shakamaru managed.

As soon as the flames died, Sasuke charged heedlessly through the heat and smoke. The two of them engaged in taijutsu for a minute, Sasuke careful to keep Shikamaru's hands apart from each other. Try as he might, Shikamaru couldn't wrest control of the fight back. A low knee was parried sideways, resulting high strike stopped dead with ninja reflexes. Shikamaru was outmatched, but he managed to force Sasuke off-balance for a few seconds.

"Kagemane complete," he panted, sweat pouring down his forehead. Sasuke looked cool and composed, if it a bit more tired. He bent over, mimicking Shikamaru's defeated gesture.

"You can't win," the Uchiha commented. "How long can you even keep this up?"

Shikamaru shrugged, and so did Sasuke. "A few minutes," he said lackadaisically. "I'm just waiting for an idea to come to me."

An idea did not come to him, and so Shikamaru simply flopped onto his back. Sasuke did the same, though he looked distinctly less amused about it.

"I wish I was a cloud," Shikamaru said seriously. "Clouds don't have to put up with all the shit my parents expect from me. Ninja are supposed to kill people, and as if that weren't troublesome enough, we're supposed to die too. That's the price of living in Konoha, right? Well, there are actually a lot of older ninja here, but only because we don't have any wars going on right now."

Hayate sighed. "Kid, wrap it up or your buddy here wins by default," he coughed.

"I just want to stop, you know?" Shikamaru continued. "I want to drift by in the world. I would, too...if only my clan didn't expect so damn much from me."

_'You're preaching to the choir,'_ Sasuke thought, feeling the presence of his father and older brother above him. He decided to let it slide.

"But...I can't. After everything this village has done for me, I'm going to stand up and fight. But I won't fight you, Uchiha Sasuke-chan. I forfeit."

"The winner is Uchiha Sasuke!" Hayate roared hoarsely.

**A—Ж—N**

"That was lame," Kiba said. "I mean, Sasuke was supposed to beat Shikamaru to a bloody pulp! What happened?"

"Shikamaru-san m-must have thought that h-his chakra would have r-run out," Hinata said. Her byakugan weren't centred on Shikamaru's chakra network at the time, but it seemed obvious to her that he had reached the end of his rope. Whatever Shikamaru had in mind when he gave up the fight, it hadn't come to pass.

Shikamaru stumbled into the stands, arms wrapped around his chest. Sasuke had not pulled his punches, and the Nara looked raw all over. He bumped knuckles with Shino on his way out, but Kiba accosted him before Chouji could draw him away from the world of everyone else.

"Hey, what was up with that?" the Inuzuka demanded.

"I didn't want to embarrass myself any further," Shikamaru said shortly. Chouji chose that moment to literally bowl him over, and Shikamaru's time was thereafter occupied with reassuring him that Ino was fine and talking him down from suicidally challenging Neji.

The Kazekage's bodyguard snorted in disgust. "What the hell kind of fight was that?" she exclaimed. "They call themselves ninja?"

"You were like that once," the Kazekage remarked mildly. "Young, cocky, and just waiting to be stabbed to death on some battlefield."

She grit her teeth. "You're right, Kazekage-sama."

"Still, Nara-kun is unfit for the burden of chuunin," Sarutobi said candidly.

**A—Ж—N**

The third match was Temari versus Aburame Shino. Not many people could honestly say that Shino didn't unnerve them, but Temari was one such person. After a lifetime of watching various gruesome deaths, being unable to stop them and knowing that you could damn well be next did a lot to throw your sense of strangeness off.

Then a cloud of insects burst from Shino's body, and Temari reminded herself that some people chose to be strange. The kikaichuu were one of the many species of insects that the Aburame played host to, infamous for their ability to drain chakra and distribute it amongst their fellow beetles. Temari swatted the dark cloud away with her fan, a powerful blast of wind freeing up the space between them.

"This is a predicament," Shino mused. "I cannot use my colony to full effect if they are consistently driven away from you. It seems I must resort to unconventional tactics."

_'Unconventional by whose standards?'_ Temari wondered. Shino reformed his swarm between them like a wall and pushed forward. Temari blasted through the insects with a sweep of her fan, but Shino himself came charging through. He landed a solid punch to her face, but Temari wasn't a kunoichi for nothing. Ignoring the fact that she'd be dead if he'd used a kunai, she swung her fan out of the way and hammered Shino in the gut. The Aburame flowed with the blow like a strand of seaweed in a current, then shot back towards her head again. This time, Temari easily guided the blow past her head, twisted Shino about by the arm, and slammed him to the ground in a hammerlock.

It was his curious pliability that made her realize her mistake. 'Shino' dropped the Henge and appeared as he was: a mass of kikaichuu masquerading as a man. The real Shino came in from behind, armed with a long-handled knife, but Temari easily knocked him aside with the butt of her war fan.

"Kamaitachi no Jutsu!" she proclaimed as she spun about, hundreds of slicing blades lancing into him and his kikaichuu. A dozen of them dropped dead, too tightly packed to avoid the invisible death, and the entire hive was disrupted. Temari grinned savagely at Shino's distress, panic evident even behind his dark sunglasses.

"Let's see how many of your little parasites survive _this_. Daikamaitachi no Jutsu!"

To Shino's dismay, most of his kikaichuu were blown into the crowd and out of the arena. Beyond his ability to control them with biochemical signals, they roamed aimlessly through the area, generally annoying the people they happened to land on. The floor of the ring was darkening with insect corpses, most cleanly bisected by the wind blades but for a few unfortunates clinging to life. Shino twitched, pissed as hell but impotent against a wind-wielder. Only the largest of the Aburame insects could resist strong winds, and he didn't have any that fit the bill. Robbed of his ninjutsu and facing an older, stronger opponent, Shino folded like a house of cards.

"I forfeit."

**A—Ж—N**

"Damnit, why are you guys getting crushed?" Kiba moaned. "First Shikamaru, now Shino; next thing you know, Naruto's gonna lose!"

"He's probably going to lose anyways," Chouji pointed out sagely. "That other guy chewed up Lee-san and spat out his bones."

"N-Naruto-kun might h-have a ch-chance," Hinata stuttered.

"Who knows?" Shikamaru said vaguely. "Either could win."

The three combatants in the next round lined up on a small balcony nearby. Temari stood between Neji and Sasuke, both boys using her as a barrier to protect themselves from having to tolerate one another. Sasuke leaned indolently over the railing, a small smirk gracing his mouth as he watched the final preliminary. Temari and Neji were both completely still, like predators waiting for prey to relax.

"The last event before the final rounds will take place between Gaara of Suna and Uzumaki Naruto!"

Many of the ninja shifted uncomfortably. One jinchuuriki was bad news, but two of them trying to kill each other was akin to armies clashing. A few of the more pessimistic attendees from Suna outright left the building, but a fair number of them stayed to watch the clash of the titans.

"So, you are the Kitsune's jinchuuriki," Gaara said. "I did not believe Mother when she told me, and I was...punished. However, it seems Mother was right."

"Ever get tired of having a psychotic demon stuck in your head?" Naruto asked irreverently. "Big ol' Tanuki, too big for your skull but small enough to fit. Why do you still call him your mom, huh? What did Shukaku ever do for you?"

"Mother has given me purpose," Gaara said gravely.

"Mother is driving you into an early grave," Naruto retorted savagely. "You give jinchuuriki a bad name everywhere, you deranged bastard! Wise up, or some day your dad is gonna rip your demon out and seal it back in a teakettle where it belongs!"

Gaara laughed, low at first but rising until his entire body shook with mirth. All the while, his eyes never left Naruto's. "You think he hasn't tried?" he hissed coldly. "You think Kazekage-sama hasn't tried to kill me? I killed my own mother, and in retaliation he set my uncle on me. Chuunin, jonin, ANBU, they kept trying to kill me and I kept killing them. Eventually, I realized that was my purpose. I'm going to kill and kill until the sand turns red with blood! _That is my destiny, Uzumaki Naruto!_"

"If this is the only way you'll listen to reason," Naruto said, cracking his knuckles. The Reaper Death Seal glowed blue under his clothes for a brief instant, but Naruto quickly locked the Kyuubi's chakra away. He could do it, even without the demonic influence. Gaara's smile grew feral, the red tattoo above his left eye shining with otherworldly light.

"Begin," Hayate ordered.

Gaara reached over his shoulder, grabbed the gourd of sand and smashed it on the ground. Shukaku roared in delight, a tsunami of sand rising up fast enough to generate wind and slamming down on Naruto. Or, it would have, if Naruto hadn't taken off like a bullet around the arena's circumference. The particles of sand hit the ground and filtered through, shaking the foundations of the building as it vanished in the dirt. Gaara himself was surrounded by orbiting halos of sand, spinning like the rings of Jupiter and protecting him from threats seen and unseen.

Naruto got some distance from the little drama and brought his hands together into a cross. "Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu," he muttered, and twenty or so clones of Naruto appeared at even points around the arena. Each of them uncapped the plastic case they carried, quickly downing the two soldier pills contained within. Genma had warned against using more than one at once, but given that they were essentially shadows given bodies Naruto assumed that the damage wouldn't carry over to him.

The Naruto clones ringed Gaara, who stood confidently at the centre of a galaxy of dust and debris. As one, they set long back stances, welled up chakra inside their lungs, and fired.

"_Suiton: M__izurappa no Jutsu_!" the platoon shouted, each of them spewing an impressive stream of water towards Gaara. The younger jinchuuriki thrust out both hands, beckoning Shukaku to his aid. The sand intercepted every incoming stream, but the torrent of water forced the grains out of alignment. Gaara strained against the water, but the sheer volume of liquid forced him to move.

"Suna Shunshin no Jutsu," he whispered, allowing the sand to encircle him theatrically before he vacated the centre of the storm. Naruto's shadow clones obliterated the spot just seconds after he left it, pumping in enough water to flood the pit. Gaara looked down. The water had reached his ankles and was rising steadily.

Naruto had vastly increased the amount of water. A true master of water ninjutsu wouldn't have wasted so much chakra, and anyone even slightly more experienced than him would have some degree of control over the blasts. Volume and kinetic energy were Naruto's weapons of choice, not snapping fangs or acid rain. As soon as the sand gave way, he was immediately dashing towards the spot. Not to finish Gaara, but to avoid being near him, wherever he had moved to.

Gaara struck sort of a scrawny figure. Words like muscular, agile and athletic didn't quite describe him. It was sort of surprising to most people that his cute exterior and unassuming frame hid an unrefined strength. It really shouldn't, considering his cute exterior and unassuming frame also hid an omnicidal demon sealed only by the tenuous thread of a mother's love. But Gaara relished the chance to surprise enemies who thought they could somehow get the best of him in lightning-fast taijutsu.

The blond jinchuuriki narrowed his eyes as Gaara moved a bit, wet splashes sounding eerily loud. The redhead pivoted and kicked at the sky in a wide arc. A torrential amount of water was propelled by the force of the crescent kick, effectively blinding the Naruto clones between him and Gaara. The sand moved in, crushing the oblivious clones as they performed their duty to the last. Some of remaining ones were starting to look emaciated, so Naruto created a new batch to resume flooding the place.

"Is this all it takes to fight a Tanuki?" Naruto jeered, doubling over as Gaara hurled a shuriken at him. "You're weak, Gaara! You've no friends, no purpose, no power! And when you lose, you'll have _nothing_!"_  
_

"Then I won't lose," Gaara grunted, disappearing in a helix of sand. Ten of the new clones suddenly ruptured, brief flashes of blood quickly decaying into obscuring smoke. Naruto crouched low to the water, his arms disappearing below the surface as he scanned for the telltale ripples that Gaara's Shunshin would make. He was just beginning some hand seals when a dozen clones of Gaara took to the air and began launching shuriken at him. Their lower bodies trailed off into sand, which allowed them to stay aloft as Gaara remotely controlled them. Gaara's remote control aim was pretty shitty though, and Naruto barely had to twitch to avoid the majority of the shuriken.

The real Gaara looked positively demonic. Beneath the writhing cloud of sand and clones, the kanji tattooed on his forehead had spread to cover his entire body like a red spiderweb. Sand was welling up from the ground itself, churning more sand out of the wet earth and joining the planetoid under Shukaku's control that orbited above Gaara's head.

Naruto just smiled absently, blithely ignoring the monstrosity amassing its resources before him.

"Any last words, Uzumaki?" Gaara thundered.

"Umm...nope!"

The shuriken Gaara had thrown reverted to their base sand, nearby sources of the material easily falling under Gaara's sway. With a hand gesture the thin band of sand snapped up around Naruto and closed tightly to his chest. Arms immobile, Naruto's smile never left his face. Gaara squeezed his hand into a fist, and the sand began to tighten.

Then, it didn't.

"Yanno, the biggest problem with fighting you was the knockout," Naruto said mildly. "If you go down, Shukaku breaks out of the seal and takes over for a while. Your seal operates on willpower, then, so it's just a matter of disabling Shukaku before you. I had a few options for that, but I decided that it would be easiest to just drain your chakra."

"Shut up," Gaara hissed. He was looking pale, sweat rolling profusely down his forehead. The sand encircling Naruto promptly dropped into the water.

"While you use the sand, the demonic chakra is right there, waiting to be taken," Naruto went on. "I bet it's just about gone now. Hmm, then I bet you'll have to use your own chakra. Using all this sand won't be so easy then, huh?"

Gaara opened his mouth to retort, but Naruto beat him to the punch: a literal punch, that is. His fist collided squarely with Gaara's nose, giving the younger jinchuuriki a concussion and knocking him out instantly. The sand itself gave a piercing scream before dropping to the ground, turning the knee-deep water into a muddy slurry.

Beneath Gaara's clothes, the dozen or so divisions of Senshi that had been draining Shukaku's chakra felt the boy's heart rate slow, and they quickly returned themselves to the original in Shikkotsu forest.

**A—Ж—N**

Stunned silence fell over the arena. Hayate, who had retreated to the second row of seating, shook his head in disbelief. The sand...and the water jutsu...and the _chakra_...

Circumstances aside, he was still the referee.

"The winner of this..." he hesitated, "...historic match is: Uzumaki Naruto."

"Huh," said Kiba.

"..." said Neji, a sentiment echoed by Shikamaru.

"W-Well d-d-done," Hinata squeaked.

"Hn," Sasuke commented.

Some other sentiments were expressed by members of the audience, but none were so loud nor so euphoric as Anko.

"_Hell yeah, kid!_"

* * *

_I wondered for a while how to overpower Gaara in this sort of fashion, and this is what I came up with. I'm not totally happy with it, but it's unlikely to get any better than this. Thanks for the 100+ reviews, you make my day._

* * *

~Please Review.~


	8. The Grail Orochimaru Sought

**Sunlight For Leaves**

by _Aegis_

Chapter VIII: The Grail Orochimaru Sought

* * *

The Chuunin Exams continued, much to the surprise of its attendees. A small squad of chuunin were sent out to clear the slurry of mud that Gaara and Naruto left behind, while some of the tokubetsu jonin reassured the audience that nothing unusual had happened. Neji and Sasuke were fighting soon, and wouldn't everyone like to see that?

The ANBU serving as Sarutobi's bodyguard had remained perfectly still throughout the whole fight. She had orders to abandon him and call in the emergency sealing team if Naruto or Gaara lost control, but Naruto had handled his counterpart masterfully. Performing the Kuchiyose no Jutsu underwater had confounded some of the observers, but Yuugao recognized the signs of a summoning when she saw them. The slugs must have bled Shukaku dry, putting the strain of supporting the sand on Gaara himself and making it safe for Naruto to punch him out.

She related as much to her Hokage, who grimaced but otherwise didn't comment.

Yuugao looked down at the ground floor, where Neji and Sasuke were facing off. Sasuke was backing warily away from Neji, who would easily destroy him in close combat. The Hyuuga also regulated his approach, sweeping his vision for traps and the variations in Sasuke's chakra that would indicate a jutsu. They'd entered the stalemate that so often occured between ninja of similar skill levels; neither could afford to strike first, neither could drop their guard.

"This may take some time," Sarutobi commented. "Tell me, how do you feel about Gaara's defeat?"

"It was inevitable," the Kazekage opined. "Much of his prowess came from the ignorance of his enemies. No enemy of Sunagakure is unaware of our famous sand manipulation, but none have mastered it to the level Gaara has. In truth, Gaara has relied at times on Shukaku being released, so he was unprepared for the demon's absence. I will ensure he is better prepared in the future."

"Does Suna have any other jinchuuriki to rely on, then?"

The Kazekage snorted. "Certainly. We have a handful of Kaijuu and Tengu in reserve, but Gaara was our only Tanuki. Naturally, I had it sealed in my son."

"Naturally," the Hokage agreed. "Do you ever wonder—"

"Kagemane no Jutsu!" Sasuke announced. Those three words instantly caught the attention of everyone present. Indeed, his shadow was now elongated like a spear and buried in the shadow of Neji. The Hyuuga regarded the technique with some suspicion, but when he tried to step back his body jittered like building in an earthquake. Sasuke frowned as his chakra began to drain alarmingly quickly.

Having anticipated his use of Shikamaru's signature move, Sasuke had relocated his shuriken pouch a few centimetres higher. He drew one, Neji's fingers consequently scrabbling uselessly at his own thigh.

"The sharingan is superior to the byakugan after all," he said archly, and threw it.

Neji remained implacably composed as the spinning metal star hurtled towards his chest, his expression never wavering even when a pulse of blue energy welled up at the point of impact and deflected the shuriken.

"The sharingan may be superior, but the byakugan isn't my only kekkei genkai," Neji said, with characteristic backhand humility. "Juuken is as useful for defence as for offence."

Sasuke snarled, and with a burst of power a black hailstorm of shuriken, kunai and senbon rained down on Neji; enough to leave Tenten in awe, if they weren't currently aimed at her teammate. Neji manipulated his chakra system without moving his body, systematically knocking the projectiles off course while straining his muscles at the same time. Sasuke's control wasn't as refined as a true Nara's, and his chakra was waning. There was only one solution.

He backed up, forcing Neji to do the same until they were nearly at opposite ends of the ring and his shadow was stretched taut. Then, lowering his right hand to the side, Sasuke filled the air with the scent of ozone and the screaming chorus of a thousand birds. He levelled the Chidori at Neji's chest, who also raised a hand to point at Sasuke, and together they charged.

The audience held its breath as the two prodigies raced headlong towards collision, neither showing any particular emotion as Sasuke prepared to kill Neji in cold blood. There was a small riot in the stands, Gai and Kakashi were watching each other stonily, and the Hokage was torn by indecision. Sarutobi Hiruzen remained neutrally uninvolved right until the end.

Sasuke was undone by an unfortunate fact of biology: Neji's arms were longer than his. The Hyuuga's fingertips brushed against his chest well before the Chidori reached its target. The lightning lanced out into Neji's forearm, turning the skin black and melting the hairs on his arms. A shield of chakra sprang up too late, but Neji had already done what he intended. His index finger lay squarely on a tenketsu sixteen millimetres to the right of his superior vena cava.

The Uchiha's eyes remained implacably empty, even as the lightning sputtered and he toppled slowly backwards. Neji easily freed himself from the Kagemane no Jutsu and quickly backed away from the grievously wounded Sasuke.

"Medics," he called over his shoulder, and a team of doctors rushed onto the field for Sasuke.

**A—Ж—N**

Sarutobi groaned. His heart had felt close to stopping when the Uchiha initiated the ridiculous event, and his lightheaded dizziness returned as Sasuke's sparking body was lifted onto a stretcher. He was familiar with the tenketsu Neji had doubtlessly aimed for, which could kill a target provided they had no assistance. Sasuke would live, but his future was in question. The Hokage's head dropped into his hands, and he groaned.

"I'm getting too old to be running a village," he confided in Yuugao.

"You ought to nominate a successor, sir," she said lightly, highly aware that she was crossing a line. "There are a dozen jonin fit for the position, and any would be happy to become Godaime. Inoichi-san, perhaps, or Choza-sama."

"Yes, but I feel—"

"**NO!**" Naruto roared. A blast of crimson chakra radiated off the jinchuuriki's skin, melting the stands around him and vaporizing most of the other genin with its oppressive weight. He rushed out onto the field, arms of chakra reaching ahead and burrowing into the unsuspecting Neji's back. The Hyuuga died soundlessly, as did the first squad of ANBU sent to subdue him. The sealing team fared little better, but by now the arena was swarming with agents from Kirigakure. Sarutobi recognized the trapezoid-shaped end of a Sword of the Seven, as well as the famous masks of the Hunter Division.**  
**

Naruto was plowing indiscriminately through friend and foe alike, but Sarutobi was less concerned by the Uzumaki and more with the plumes of smoke rising on the horizon. Kiri ninja were burning Konoha, somehow having bypassed their scout teams with an entire army. And with all of their major operatives out of the village or providing security for the Selection Exams...

It was a goddamn nightmare. Sarutobi leapt to his feet, extending both hands in the Ram seal to summon Enma. The massive amounts of chakra necessary to summon such a powerful spirit rose up from his navel, rushed through his chakra pathways to his arms, passed his heart—

The Sandaime Hokage of Konoha clutched vaguely at his left shoulder, slumped to his knees and died. The heart attack came with no warning, other than his surge of activity near the end.

Yuugao Uzuki jumped to her feet, barking orders into the comm unit clipped to her ear. A team of medics were routed from the lower floors to help him, but it was too late for anything other than prayer.

Silently, Tayuya ended her genjutsu. Orochimaru nodded approvingly over the rim of his collar, quickly appraising the situation. In one minute the medics would arrive. In five, a scan would detect traces of Tayuya's chakra in Sarutobi's brain. In five minutes, they would be suspects.

Orochimaru was ready for everything.

Feigning concern over Sarutobi's death, Tayuya drifted closer to Yuugao. In one swift movement, she shanked the ANBU in the ribs, driving her tanto into the woman's chest and through her lungs.

"Never turn your back, bitch," she hissed, chopping a hand into Yuugao's throat and using the other to keep her katana well out of reach. Slowly, Uzuki Yuugao's frantic strugle stopped.

When the ANBU assigned to the Hokage's protection detail arrived, their blades met Tayuya's bunshin, and Orochimaru simply replaced himself with a log and drifted away.

**A—Ж—N**

Kakashi wasn't sure when the world had gone mad, but it was some time after Sasuke did the roaringly stupid and impaled himself on Neji's Juuken. The Chidori must have whitened the shadows, meaning Neji had chosen to rush Sasuke, knowing he'd win.

Shortly thereafter, the corpses of the Sandaime Hokage and Yondaime Kazekage were thrown from the balcony, as well as the cat-masked Yuugao. Ater coming to the obvious conclusion that the Kazekage's guard was a ninja assassin, Kakashi initiated a full evacuation.

Sirens blaring in the streets and booming voices from loudspeakers informing the population that 'THIS IS NOT A DRILL! PLEASE EXIT THE VILLAGE ACCORDING TO THE EMERGENCY EVACUATION PROTOCOLS!' From the shadows, someone with immense genjutsu skills launched a Nehan Shouta no Jutsu, followed by another and another until civilians and genin were dropping asleep left, right and centre. The remaining eighty jonin and tokubetsu jonin convened around Kakashi, many of them shedding ANBU masks as they ran.

"What's going on?" the Hatake said with deadly calm.

"Sir, snakes are escaping from Training Ground Forty-Four! We don't have the manpower to drive them off!"

"Sir, Hokage-sama died of a stress-induced heart attack! The Kazekage has evidence of cranial trauma. The assassin is gone."

"Sir, one hundred fifty Suna chuunin and jonin are attacking Konoha! They appear to be targeting defensive positions and vital targets. We've lost R&D, the western warehouses and the hospital!"

Kakashi took a deep breath, moved the band of cloth off of his sharingan, and began barking off orders at lightning speed. Tokubetsu jonin zipped off in rehearsed formation towards the invading force, some chuunin went to round up the genin and civilians, others targeting the sleeping people with well-placed kicks to wake them up. Soon, only Kakashi, Asuma and Anko remained.

"You two are with me," he growled, turning to the chaos. "Tsume-san is getting Jiraiya-sama, but we're going ahead."

"Where to, Kakashi-taichou?" Anko asked. Somehow, she already felt the answer churning in her gut.

"He's here," Kakashi said slowly. "Move!"

**A—Ж—N**

At the same time, Yamanaka Inoichi was facing a dilemma. A pair of ninja he'd never seen before, one grotesquely fat and the other rail thin, were fighting Chouza and Shikaku. The fat one was matching the Akimichi blow for blow, neither of them yielding an inch, while the thin one was defying Shikaku's Kagemane no Jutsu without breaking a sweat. In seconds, they'd both be overwhelmed, and he could only help one of them.

Chouza's arms grew to the diameter of watermelons, but the Oto ninja stopped the uncoming smash with his own bulk, returning the attack with a brutally low kick that Chouza barely avoided. They seemed evenly matched, but Shikaku was in trouble. Nara, like other clan ninja, were usually unprepared for the complete and utter failure of their private ninjutsu. The grey-haired man was pressing the advantage, driving Shikaku into a corner. The dark-haired strategist threw a smoke pellet to the ground and Shunshin'ed closer to Inoichi, but his sickly opponent was hot on his heels.

Making his choice, the blond man squared his stance and aimed his soul.

"Shintenshin no Jutsu," he hissed, feeling his body crumple as his mind overtook the other shinobi's. Like the well-trained mindbreaker he was, Inoichi bypassed the man's psyche and assumed control of his body. He felt..._off_, but nevertheless asserted himself as dominant and opened his mouth to reassure Shikaku.

Then a third arm reached out from his chest and grappled with his face. Inoichi had seen a lot of things in his time as a professional interrogator, but this was one of the strangest. It immediately called to mind Orochimaru's twisted experiments, but his host memories soon supplied an explanation.

"Kekkei genkai?" he wheezed with Sakon's voice. Ukon smiled from within him and burst out of his back, sprinting for Inoichi's fallen body. Chouza crashed in from behind, staving off his own opponent long enough to smack the second man to the ground. Ukon used Kawarimi to duck the followup killing blow and went on for the body, while the fat man switched targets to Shikaku.

While Shikaku prepared to kill the stupid ninja, Inoichi was rushing after Ukon with Chouza. Sensing that he was perhaps out out of his depth, the ninja prepared to fend off Chouza and his possessed brother for as long as possible.

That wasn't very long at all, because a glob of yellow liquid hardened into a spike slammed heavily into the ground in front of Inoichi.

"Aren't you guys going to level up yet? This is just the checkpoint battle!" shouted a dark-skinned man. Two of his arms were extended, having thrown one spike each to interrupt Inoichi and Chouza, a further two were forming hand seals, and the fifth was scratching his nose. The grey-haired man put on a burst of speed and crashed bodily into Inoichi's prone form, his body turning red and creaking torturously before warping away.

Inoichi groaned. "I don't...feel well...fuck..."

He fell to his knees in Sakon's body, pain from far away rippling through the mental link from his own body. Dimly, he saw Yamashiro Aoba and a few ANBU enter the fight, but he was loosing the battle for control. With trembling fingers, he released the jutsu.

**A—Ж—N**

Kakashi growled audibly, a sound that sent shivers up the spines of Anko and Asuma. Orochimaru had taken hostages. Three of them, two men and a woman. Ninja too, judging by the restraining seals painted on their skin. A bit closer, and Asuma's gut twisted: the girl was Inuzuka Hana.

"Only the three of you?" Orochimaru said sadly. "Pity, I was expecting more. I do so adore a challenge, you know."

Anko looked like she was restraining herself from doing something stupid, which Kakashi resolved to reward her for later. It was increasingly obvious that Orochimaru was guilty of the death of Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Yondaime Kazekage, and probably Yuugao too. That wasn't even including the casualties from this latest invasion. He opened the emergency channel on his headset with one finger, taking in the frantic chatter of the defenders with a bit of attention. It seemed Genma and Raido had organized some kind of blockade against the snakes, but faster and more agile spider summons were overriding the stationary points. Pity none of the hidden villages had secured the loyalty of the Spider Domain, Orochimaru's sway over them was probably tenuous.

"You all know how _depraved_ and _monstrous_ I am," Orochimaru said grandly, "but fear not! I can sink to lower depths still!"

"...Bastard..." Anko whispered.

"Behold, the crowning creation of the Nidaime Hokage: the Edo Tensei!"

Asuma whistled. The Impure World Reincarnation was one of the most feared techniques ever created, the signature move of Senju Tobirama. He had used it to raise the dead on the battlefield, giving them a second chance to serve Konoha by carrying out impossible missions and defeating superior forces. Asuma had never seen it in person, as the ability had purportedly died with Tobirama.

_'Evidently not,'_ he thought, panic seeping into his bones. They were so deep in shit he began to wonder if he'd ever see the light of day again.

"For you, Asuma-kun, I think you'd enjoy meeting your dearly departed sensei again," said Orochimaru. A flick of the hand and one of the two men was on the ground, gasping for breath. Only Kakashi spared a thought for Hagane Kotetsu, before a white mist crept over his body.

A coffin rose, marked with name of a man long dead. Kato Dan.

"You sonnuvabitch," Asuma breathed in awe.

"For you, Kakashi-kun, I took the liberty of bringing back your father," Orochimaru went on, smacking Kamizuki Izumo on the back of the head and sacrificing him in short order. A second coffin joined the first. Hatake Sakumo.

Anko was trembling with rage by the time Orochimaru met her eyes. There was nothing recognizable in their depths as the man she'd once loved, and she hated him for it. Hated him for his kindness and betrayal, and for the way he pretended it didn't happen.

"I thought I'd give us both a treat," the snake sannin said casually. "Who do we both know who's dead, Anko-chan? Anyone in particular you'd like to see again? Hmm, what about Uchiha Shi—"

"NO!" Anko roared. The purple-haired woman bounded into the air, smoke billowing from her body as she revved up her chakra. Kakashi and Asuma watched passively as bursts of flame and purple energy flared up in the darkness, lashing at each other like vipers. Anko dragged herself out of the rather one-sided melee with her prize, Hana, relieved that Shisui would be staying where he belonged.

"Hm, no matter," Orochimaru said absently. A wave of his hand and a gust of wind blew the smoke away.

The coffins opened.

**A—Ж—N**

Raido was having an enormously swell time. It was rare for a tokubetsu jonin to be sent on potentially violent missions, typically being reserved for tracking, reconnaissance and other necessary positions that were dull, but required trusted individuals. Anko liked to lament that the problem was unique to her, but Inoichi (master interrogator), Hayate (chuunin examiner) and Raido (professional bodyguard) all felt the boredom every once in a while.

It made him think of the old days, when Minato was Hokage and life was good. In a way, Raido was almost happy that Minato wasn't there. A Hirashin user could have ended the invasion far sooner than he wanted it to.

"How many more of these slimy bastards are there?" he shouted.

"I would estimate thirty to thirty-five," said Shibi. The patriarch of the Aburame clan's insect hive was populated by a rare breed with the ability to absorb twice their own chakra capacity in only a few seconds. It was a point of pride that Shibi could kill a man with only a few beetles, and it was his insects alone that reduced the potency of the Kyuubi enough that Minato was able to seal all of it, albeit at the price of his own life and more than a few insects.

"The spiders are coming from behind!" called Iruka. The teacher was interrupted by a Suna ninja with a massive metal fan. One swing from it and a cloud of black ash darkened the battle field. From far away, Raido could hear the sound of Iruka struggling with the man.

"Shit, it's the Kurotessen!" Genma swore.

"Huh? That's Hiraga?"

Now that he thought about it, the white veil and metal shoes looked vaguely familiar to him. Genma would know better, having spent the best of four years on the front lines with Suna. One of the greatest ninja ever produced by Sunagakure, Hiraga was famous for his nonchalance and lack of tact throughout the shinobi nations. The Kazekage tolerated him for the same reason the Hokage tolerated Kakashi: results.

As its name implied, one of the Kurotessen's abilities was creating dust, ash and gritty particles to blow in the winds it created. Hiraga used it to control the battlefield, cutting off line of sight and blinding his opponents. Theoretically, having soot in his eyes would make fighting in a cloud as difficult for him as his enemies.

In practice, Hiraga was blind.

Iruka was having some difficulty fighting the man, even with Genma by his side and Raido closing in fast. Hiraga moved like a dervish, kicking up black barriers with his war fan while fighting offensively with shuriken. There was already one in Iruka's shoulder, cleaving the bone in two and channeling blood out of the wound.

"Does he have any weaknesses?" Raido screamed, plucking a shuriken out of the air, only to drop gracefully under the trajectory of another one.

"I'm blind, not deaf," Hiraga retorted sullenly. His voice was unusually high, and seemed to come from somewhere near Iruka. That was no guarantee of his actual position, as ventriloquism was another of the man's talents. Raido parried the slash of a kunai with his short sword, wondering if Shibi's beetles could smell people.

The answer, it seemed, was yes, but not in any useful way. Hiraga was targeting Shibi exclusively, no doubt aware that he was the most dangerous member of their quartet. Outside, another chuunin radioed ANBU about a wave of spiders escaping the Forest of Death, but for now their problem was Hiraga. Raido instinctively dulled the sound of his footsteps, doing his best to blend in with the background as he pondered his target with a killer's eye. Loud noises would work, he assumed, as would having another jonin on their side. People trained in fighting blind were a ninja's nightmare.

"DYNAMIC ENTRY!" shouted Gai, crashing headlong into the smokescreen with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Hiraga very nearly dodged the first kick, but Gai still hit him hard enough to spin him around. The Sand jonin retaliated with a blast of air that disrupted his balance, but Gai soon recovered.

From there, Iruka, Genma and Raido backed slowly out of the cloud as Gai and Hiraga began a painfully slow game of cat and mouse. The three of them stood there idly for a few seconds, just listening to Gai's witless banter and Hiraga's deadpan retorts while looking around for Shibi.

Then the spiders attacked.

**A—Ж—N**

Anko didn't waste a second after seeing the graves of Sakumo and Dan open. She took off like a bullet, racing for Orochimaru as he gradually left Kakashi and Asume behind. The pale man flitted down Konoha's streets, evading notice under the panic and disaster he had created. Anko saw people fighting and dying in the streets, with Konoha gradually winning a Pyrrhic victory. A nearby trio of ANBU from Suna was fighting against Aburame Shibi, while cannon fodder took on the Inuzuka and Hyuuga clans.

Orochimaru seemed to have a destination in mind, though he was by no means direct in getting to it. He cut under brdges and over buildings, sometimes throwing an explosive tag into a battle to help or hinder his own forces. Anko remembered something he'd once said while they were still together. He loved being the wind that made the windmill spin, in whichever direction it might be.

The Hokage's residence was nearly deserted, though a few genin had taken shelter in the western wing. Orochimaru crashed through the window and killed the four of them without stopping. Anko didn't either, but she slowed enough to recognize the face of a girl from the Academy. None of this was endearing him to her, she thought sardonically.

The twisting labyrinth of corridors was difficult to follow her former sensei through, but the odd hole in the wall where he'd changed his mind and burst through helped. Anko was beginning to wonder if he'd lowered his speed to match her fastest sprint when he came to a crashing halt. Anko had the foresight to affix her feet to the floor, but the result change in velocity nearly broke her ankles.

Orochimaru was standing just inside a massive oaken door, the warding fuuinjutsu torn to shreds and the token ANBU guard dead.

"Come now, you truly believed that I coordinated a full-scale assault Konoha on a petty whim?" Orochimaru said into the silence. "If I wished you all dead, I would have hired Deidara, or one of those Iwa ninja who love their explosions. No, the only reason I'm here—and the only reason I wished to become Hokage—is in is room."

With dawning horror, Anko realised that she knew this room. It had been on a writeup in Naruto's file, which she'd skimmed over a few weeks ago. The treasure passed down from Hokage to Hokage.

The Scroll of Seals.

* * *

_Once again, I'm not happy with a few things in this chapter. Naruto hasn't fought Temari (yet) and I feel like I gave Sarutobi a cheap death. Or did I?_

_On a different note, the Hyuuga actually have two bloodline limits. One is the Byakugan, and the other allows them to expel chakra from every point on their bodies. That's what Neji was talking about when he said the Byakugan wasn't his only kekkei genkai._

_Hiraga is what I like to refer to as 'Kakashi-level'. That is, not quite Itachi or Jiraiya, but nevertheless a dangerous opponent. And if Sand's jonin follow the trend of their ranking system, then they're all at least as good as Kakashi, Zabuza, and so on. His weapon will be expanded on later._

___I think this story wins the award as the first one written in which Hayate outlives his girlfriend. So there's that._

* * *

~Please review.~


	9. The Status of Shadows

**Sunlight For Leaves**

by _Aegis_

Chapter IX: The Status of Shadows

* * *

Orochimaru sliced the chest containing the scroll in two with the Kusanagi. A thick roll of parchment paper flopped out, undisturbed by the destruction of its vessel. He picked it up carefully and slung it over his shoulder, using a thin cord as a sash to hold it in place.

"Senju Hashirama went to great lengths to seal away the greatest techniques of the world," he explained idly. "As part of the Treaty of Kizo Summit, a great many things that were commonplace during the Era of Warring States were labelled forbidden. The Shadow Clone technique, for instance, and the Shirokajima no Jutsu. As time went on, different jutsu were added, like the Nidaime Mizukage's famous unnamed Suiton Jutsu."

"Your point being that dangerous things need to be kept away from people? Yeah, for once I might have to agree with you," Anko said. "Now drop the scroll!"

"My point? Goodness, if the Kage Bunshin is a kinjutsu, why is it used so commonly within Konoha?" Orochimaru said. "This scroll isn't so difficult to steal, or so I've heard. Didn't the ninja with the worst grades at the Academy get his hands on it?"

"He didn't learn any kinjutsu, just the Kage Bunshin," Anko growled.

"And therein lies the hypocrisy," Orochimaru retaliated. "First it was forbidden, now it's a B-Ranked ninjutsu. What's worse is that sensei dearest apparently didn't place any value on its security. Do you see genin breaking into the Raikage's villa and taking _his_ Scroll of Seals? No, because he has competent guards and a police force."

"He also doesn't have any crazy, murderous, psychotic, _evil bastard missing ninja fucking with his village!_" Anko shrieked. "Katon: Hono Tsume no Jutsu!"

Two points of fire appeared on the second and third knuckles of each of her hands. They lengthened downwards until they formed flaming spikes, rippling with blue hues. In a few minutes her skin would be black, but that was enough time to kill Orochimaru and take the scroll, possibly becoming a hero in the process.

Yeah, and Naruto was going to be the Godaime Hokage.

With a battle cry that sounded despairingly empty, Anko slashed at Orochimaru's throat. She was out of smoke pellets, which usually accompanied the head-on attacks she preferred, but in this instance it made very little difference. Orochimaru's Kawarimi brought him two metres back, and Anko's fire passed through the smaller half of the chest. It disintegrated on impact, slicing the half into halves. Orochimaru brought the Kusanagi up to her throat.

"Come now, I trained you better than that," he said flatly. "Back straight, bend your front knee slightly more than your back knee, toes parallel, and it's all in the hips."

Swearing amazingly vile names at him, Anko stepped out, blocked the sword with her arm bracers and kicked Orochimaru point-blank in the face. His head snapped backwards with a horrifying crunch, two of his vertebrae cracking from the force of the kick.

Improbably, his unoccupied hand shot up and grabbed her ankle. Orochimaru's head slid back to its mooring, and a slimy sound accompanied his nerve endings and blood vessels reconnecting. His chin dropped to its normal position, and he grinned.

"If only you knew..." he whispered. "The things they hide from you in these villages. The lies they tell you. Who knows, maybe your next Hokage won't be completely inept, however much of a longshot that is."

Anko stabbed at his chest with a conjured claw, but Orochimaru caught her wrist with the crossguard of his sword and threw it away. She stumbled back, nearly falling flat before wrenching her leg away from Orochimaru. Trembling with rage, she patted herself down in search of weapons. Nothing.

"Looking for those?" Orochimaru asked innocently, pointing a short distance away where a pile of metal, plastic and spare clothes lay in a tangled pile. Anko's heart sank; her radio unit was in there too. One-on-one against the bane of her existence, without backup, was just about the worst scenario she could possibly imagine. Preparing herself for the worst, she began devising a strategy to hopefully destroy the scroll, possibly herself, and maybe Orochimaru in the process.

"TAKE THIS, YOU LUNATIC BASTARD!" screamed a familiar voice. Both Anko and Orochimaru turned curiously... An obnoxiously orange blur shot into the room, followed by the more sedate Sakura and Tenten, and decapitated the surprised Orochimaru with a sword._  
_

**A—Ж—N**

It was only a few minutes earlier, shortly after Kabuto unleashed his powerful genjutsu, that Tenten awoke to having her shoulders shaken by a panicking Sakura.

"Holy crap, what do we do?" the pink-haired girl bleeted. "The- the jonin are all...and Hokage-sama is dead! What on Earth—?"

Tenten slapped her. In her experience, that was the best way to sober up someone suffering from too much input. As she predicted, Sakura remained stock-still for a few seconds, before shaking her head slightly and collapsing back into her seat.

"Sorry," she apologized. "I guess we should start waking up everyone else."

"Think nothing of it," Tenten said graciously, and together they proceeded to not-so-gently wake up Chouji, Shikamaru and Kiba. Shino and Naruto remained stubbornly unconscious, and Neji's arm still stung enough that the genjutsu didn't much affect him. Together, the six of them regarded Shino and Naruto with puzzlement.

"I don't think we can wake Shino up," Kiba said suddenly. "That genjutsu made all of us fall asleep, but kikaichuu are supposed to be immune to genjutsu."

"I see," Shikamaru mused, following Kiba's line of logic. "It must have triggered some kind of chemical in Shino that made them think it was time to sleep. They have to spend winters inside their hosts, kikaichuu can't tolerate the cold."

"Kikaichuu hibernate?" asked Sakura, surprised.

"Why do you think Aburame never go on missions during December or January?" said Kiba. "It's pretty short, sure, but snow turns Shino into dead weight."

"How do we know he's not just a deep sleeper like Naruto?" asked Chouji.

"Naruto is on a whole other level," Sakura answered. "We were in Wave Country, and it took fifteen minutes of combat for him to wake up, and even then he was still really out of it. Kept asking for his toothbrush for a few minutes before Sasuke punched him in the face. If we can't wake Shino up, then either the genjutsu affected his insects or they think its time to stop coming out."

"If I interpreted that correctly, then there's only one way to wake Naruto up," Neji said loftily. Before any of them could stop him, he wound up and laid into Naruto's slumbering head with a wide haymaker.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRGH!" Naruto yelped, jerking away and cupping his nose. Shikamaru snickered softly at his distress, while Kiba did his best to rein the laughter in. Neji coolly wiped the blood off his fist, and Sakura rushed to wipe his face off with his shirt.

"Jeez, I think you broke his nose," Chouji said idly. "Does anyone know how to set a broken nose?"

"I do," chorused Tenten and Kiba, but Sakura was already on it. Wrestling her teammate to the ground, she knelt on his chest, gripped his nose with the spaces between her fingers, and pulled it back into the proper alignment.

-SNAP-

Naruto let out a hilariously girly shriek, followed by a chiding Sakura continuing to hold him still while she bandaged his nose. Only the gravity of the situation kept the rest of them from dissolving into levity at his predicament.

"Seriously, do we have a plan?" Tenten cut in, desperately trying to ignore Sakura's motherly chiding while Naruto whinged about his nose. Kiba and Choji instinctively looked at Shikamaru, who groaned.

"Why me?" he huffed. "Errgh...there have to be some genin from Suna here, and they'll be working to coordinate the attack while the chuunin and jonin fight our shinobi. We should probably try and take them out."

"Got it in one," said a new voice. Sakura and Naruto stopped squabbling in time to see Temari arrive, flanked by Kankuro and Kin Tsuchi. Without adequate time to react, Shikamaru was forced to improvise. Two dozen exploding tags were drawn and thrown in a tight circle at the foreigners' feet.

"Hit the deck!" shouted Kiba.

The resulting bang was enough to rupture the floor of the stadium, with the invaders on the opposite side of a ten-foot-wide gash. It wouldn't stop them for long, but it was enough for the genin to get their asses in gear. Shikamaru assigned Neji to fight Kankuro by himself, while Sakura, Tenten and Choji took Kin and Naruto partnered with himself to take Temari. The blonde kunoichi waited indolently while the Nara finished describing their plan of attack.

With a yell, Naruto vaulted over the gap. Temari's fan swished around, and the sudden gust knocked him back. Kiba and Akamaru sprinted away, being the fastest of the group, looking for any remaining chuunin for backup. Neji skirted the hole on Kankuro's side, and proceeded to harrass Kankuro. Out of her element and confronted by three genin vastly more aggressive than Shikamaru, Kin turned tail and fled with Choji in pursuit.

That left Temari, who was more than enough to take on Sakura, Tenten, and the chakra-empty Shikamaru. Naruto, on the other hand...

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!" he grunted, summoning Senshi. Tenten did a double-take at the orange slug as three small globs split off and dropped to the floor.

"Eh-heh-NYAH! It's crawling up my leg!" Sakura cried, swatting fruitlessly at Senshi as it advanced up her thigh. Tenten gave it a flat stare for longer than was entirely necessary, and Shikamaru showed no signs of caring, or even noticing as Senshi did the same to them.

"Hmm...so you inherited Tsunade-hime's summoning contract?" Temari said in surprise. "I thought she was in the Land of Lightning right now, but it seems our intelligence was mistaken."

Tenten's eyes grew to the size of saucers. "You...Tsunade-sama's summoning contract..." she whispered in awe.

"Grow up," Sakura snapped, irritably repressing a shiver as Senshi anchored itself to her shoulder. Temari was giving Naruto a second look, taking in his dead-serious expression and the knife in his hand.

"You know about Yondaime Hokage-sama, right?" he said, rolling the kunai between his fingers with ease of practice. "He created the Hiraishin technique, killed two hundred Iwa ninja and nobody dared attack Konoha until the day he died. What the books don't talk about is the Rasengan. It was basically this giant blue ball of chakra that cut through anything: flak jackets, skin, reinforced steel, it could do it all. There's a reason they talk about the Hiraishin but not the Rasengan, and that's 'cause all you need to cut is one of these."

He brandished the knife, balancing it on the tip of a finger before letting it fall again. "Who needs fancy jutsu when you have a little common sense and a blade? I can transfer my chakra to my allies with my summon, and between the four of us we're more than a match for you. You're not wearing a flak jacket, and neither are we. Take your best shot, Temari of Suna."

Temari cracked a grin, flicking her fan open to the second full moon. "Brave words, you psychotic little shit," she laughed. "You're right, big flashy techniques don't work as well as subtle jabs and smokescreens. It's also true that you stand a decent chance of killing me. I should know, I've killed before and I know how easy it is. The difference between us is how good we are. _I'm_ one of the greatest ninja to walk through the gates of Suna. You see this fan? This is the Sakuratessen, wielded by my mother Karura and her mother before her. Do you think you can match me?"

"Let's find out," Naruto said evenly.

There was a tense silence as Temari sidled backwards, away from the gap. Tenten's hand unconsciously went to the scar on her back, where Temari's fan had torn the skin in a rectangle away from her ribs. It was still a little sore, but as her father said, the best ointment was the blood of your enemies. With a whoop of exhilaration, Temari vaulted over the gap and began driving them away with sweeping strokes of her war fan.

"Magen: Jubaku Satsu," Sakura said under her breath, trying to get a lock on Temari's chakra network. The genjutsu slipped right over her, like a fish swimming through a net. It seemed that her situational awareness was helping, but Sakura had trained for long enough to recognize the signs of one who'd trained themselves to ignore genjutsu instinctively. It was a relatively rare skill, but it put her at a significant disadvantage. Only a jonin Kurenai stood a chance of forcing a genjutsu on Temari. She would have to rely on stealth.

Shikamaru was at a bit of a loss. Though his chakra was returning swiftly, injected directly by the slug anchored to his shirt, he only had enough to pin her for a second or two. On the bright side, that was all he needed before Tenten or Naruto put something pointy in her. Temari's fan, open only to the second stage, had just enough maneuverability to confound all of them at once, and with far more ease than in her match with Tenten. He belatedly realized that her strength was fighting multiple opponents, and she had training in real combat tactics that exceeded his.

"Surround her!" he shouted, and Tenten and Naruto took up positions on her far side. Shikamaru stayed to her front, and Sakura hung back behind him. Temari's grin was turning bestial, and she opened her fan to the third tier.

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!" she cried. Naruto said something that made Sakura want clap her hands over her ears, but it was too late: her demonic little rodent was out. Shikamaru remembered very little about it, on account of its blinding speed, but he did recall that it was faster than any human could ever hope to match, it served Temari unswervingly, and it carried a curved blade as tall as it was long. Accounting for these factors, he assessed the situation and altered the strategy.

"SCATTER!" he shouted, and Naruto blurred to higher ground while Tenten took aim with her shuriken. A gust of wind blew the ill-fated projectiles back to their source, albeit harmlessly, and Kamatari was already rushing at Sakura. Showing a battle acumen not present before her showing at the chuunin exams, she fired off a salvo of kunai that kept it at bay until Shikamaru was able to close in.

"Kagemane no Jutsu," he grunted, bringing the sickle weasel to heel with his shadow. Showing not the least hesitation, Sakura approached and slashed the weasel's neck open. Her kunai stuck in its spine, but it was a deep enough wound to bring Temari's summon to a quick end. Busy with Naruto and Tenten, Temari noticed just as Sakura's hand descended, and by then it was far too late.

"Kamaitachi no Jutsu!" she howled angrily, a whirlwind with cutting force driven before her. Kamaitachi's body disappeared with a puff of smoke, and Sakura leapt out of the way of the tornado.

Tenten was momentarily taken aback by Kiba, who came sprinting back in with a large, clunky plastic radio clamped to his head. He gestured wildly at it as he ran, and Tenten's heart sank. The Suna ninja had radios. They didn't need genin for anything other than...

"They're a distraction..." she whispered. A distraction for what, she didn't know, but they were plenty distracted. Temari shrugged, before leaping acrobatically over a punch from Naruto and landing a bit behind him.

"Naruto-san, now would be an excellent time to use that red chakra," Shikamaru suggested, traces of concern leaking into his voice as Temari resumed schooling Tenten and Sakura. Naruto gave him an incredulous look, then shook his head and looked around quickly.

"Can you take her?" Naruto murmured, taking respite behind the bulwark of the Kagemane no Jutsu. He was running a bit low on chakra, but there was still enough to go around.

Shikamaru considered the angle of the sun and shadows. "I suppose," he said slowly. "I take it you want to do something more productive?"

"Orochimaru dies tonight," Naruto agreed. "I'll leave you two lovebirds together, eh Shika-kun?"

"So troublesome," he muttered. At Naruto's signal, Sakura and Tenten turned and fled in their direction. Temari watched bemusedly as three of her four opponents left like a demon was on their heels, leaving only the lazy one behind. He rolled on the balls of his feet, hands jammed deep in his pockets as he watched her like a hawk.

She jammed her fan into the ground, drawing a line to mark her best estimation of his maximum reach. Then she sat down. Shikamaru almost felt inclined to ask what she was doing, but the spark in her eyes made him close his mouth.

"Don't ruin this," she said, sounding so much like Yoshino that he decided to stay quiet and guard her for the time being.

**A—Ж—N**

Not forty metres away, the sick bay for the arena was crowded with medics. There were four fatalities already, including the Sandaime Hokage, and Yakushi Kabuto was in his element. Using Henge to appear as a man in his late thorties, he masqueraded as the head medic in the unit. Over to the right, Uzuki Yuugao's body was covered by a white sheet, while Sarutobi's was bare from the waist up. Kabuto had arranged for the dead man's face to show, hopefully reducing morale.

They admitted shinobi with mostly superficial wounds, though by the time he was done the healing process had been reduced by a factor of three or so. IVs were surreptitiously switched around, leaving people waiting for transfusions with nothing but a saline solution. It would be weeks before they arrived at the peak of health again, and that was time costing Konoha money.

"Sir, shouldn't we autopsy Hokage-sama?" asked one of the junior medics. "He _looks_ fine, but we haven't checked liver temp or done a blood test yet."

"And take time away from treating men with breath in their lungs?" Kabuto snapped, smiling inwardly as the younger woman stuttered an apology and went back to applying triage.

He needed a few moments alone with the corpse before they could be allowed to look at it. The first rule of stealth was covering your tracks. He moved to do just that, preparing a number of unorthodox instruments that would raise the eyebrows of any civilian doctor, when something stopped him.

Uchiha Sasuke's vital signs were plummeting.

**A—Ж—N**

Jiraiya hated, _hated_ Hatake Sakumo. The man was a Konoha legend, of the sort who achieved greatness like Orochimaru rather than being born into it like Tsunade. To his shame, Jiraiya had never bested the man in a sparring match, as he'd died before the Toad Sage really hit his stride. Nevertheless, gifted with limitless chakra and regeneration, Sakumo was an opponent to be feared. He even wielded an imitation of the White Light Chakra Saber, though the original was lost on a bloody field somewhere. His erstwhile teammate must have really pulled out all the stops.

Not far away, Kakashi and Asuma were fighting against Kato Dan. Jiraiya was sort of glad he didn't have to fight him himself, as Dan was nearly as unstoppable as Minato himself. His signature technique was similar to the Shintenshin no Jutsu, but solidified his soul just enough to let him kill while protecting himself in the process behind an intangible veil. Naturally, he usually fought behind Tsunade herself, so that his body was safe, but now he just refused to die. Asuma and Kakashi took turns defending themselves against a spirit while desperately stabbing and incinerating the dead body, in hopes that it might go back to being dead.

Come to think of it, this was precisely the sort of thing that Orochimaru got a kick out of. Situations that were impossible to solve, Gordian Knots made of steel, and multiple sadistic choices. Jiraiya suppressed a grunt as Sakumo kicked him in the diaphragm, grateful that he had bothered to keep his taijutsu intact over the years. Not far away, Kurenai Yuuhi was arguing with ANBU Agent Cat and his team, who were apparently the foremost fuuinjutsu experts aside from him. Jiraiya would have told them to hurry the hell up, but Sakumo's lightning-style nintaijutsu was starting to wear him down.

Jiraiya dared not summon his frogs, as one blast of lightning from Sakumo's fingertips might kill them before they had the chance to return themselves, but that didn't mean he was above fighting dirty. Within minutes, seals were strewn over the rooftop with effects ranging from 'paralysis' to 'diarrhoea' to 'heart attack'. The last one's value was dubious, but Jiraiya was as eager as the next guy to see Sakumo loose control of his bowels in the middle of a fight.

Despite being a glorified zombie, Sakumo was still essentially kicking Jiraiya's ass. Reduced to half his normal speed, Sakumo had resorted to flinging lightning bolts like they were going out of style, only closing if he had the chance to finish him off. Jiraiya wondered if Orochimaru had programmed the Hatake to seek out him personally. The single-minded determination with which the towering man attempted to char him to a crisp would have been admirable under any other circumstances.

His musings were interrupted by Naruto, of all people, followed closely by Sakura and Tenten. The three of them were running at speeds that Jiriaya _knew_ they weren't capable of, and Naruto was talking animatedly over his shoulder while the other two nodded. He opened his mouth to ward them away from the fight, but Naruto was making a beeline towards them._  
_

What happened next was almost unbelievable. Tenten threw a small, spherical explosive at Sakumo, who predictably disregarded it as a threat. The resulting bang threw shrapnel into his forearm, in just such a way that it impeded his ability to move. Emotionlessly, Sakumo pulled the largest shard out...

Only for it to turn into a puff of smoke. It reappeared in Sakumo's other hand, and the imitation White Light Chakra Saber was ejected into the air above Sakumo, where a the laughing Naruto caught it mid-leap and continued running. Tenten whistled appreciatively, and then they were off running again.

Jiraiya would later discern that Naruto's Kage Bunshin had used Henge to appear as shrapnel, a trick that wouldn't fool a living shinobi, but could easily dazzle a dead man. This was after Sakumo was sealed in a nearby teakettle, and Dan similarly trapped within Agent Cat's ANBU mask. At the time, however, all he saw was Naruto's absurdly smug grin.

**A—Ж—N**

Following the ANBU combing the scene, Naruto deduced that Orochimaru had went north. The black-clothed men were being thorough, leaving no stone unturned, but Naruto had a hunch that the man had gone for one of the only buildings of interest in the far north. Nothing of particular value to a man like the snake sannin would be in the Academy, which left only the Hokage's residence.

With his friends only just behind him, Naruto flipped the odd sword he'd stolen from the Kakashi-looking guy into a backwards grip, followed the sounds of Orochimaru's evil gloating, and followed up his Anko-style entrance with a berserker throat slash.

Orochimaru had never stood a chance.

* * *

_I apologize for slowing down, it was inevitable. I got one review that flamed me for putting Genma and Hana together, which was a little strange. Ah well, can't please everyone._

* * *

~Please Review.~


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